Congressman John Mica is tracking more wasteful spending by the General Services Administration.
And that trail brought Mica and the House Transportation and Infraustructure committee to Florida.
"This is a perfect example of how things should not be done," says Congressman Jeff Denham.
Among the GSA's responsibilities is landlord for the federal government. Mica pointed out how the agency allowed a historic Miami federal courthouse to fall apart, despite being given nearly $6-billion in stimulus money for such projects.
"You can see its historic and beauty in here, but yet we're allowing it to fall apart because GSA is not focused on the best use for this asset," says Denham.
"GSA is notorious for its Vegas hot tubber, junkets to the South Pacific, and ludicrous bonuses that cost millions of dollars, but this agency and the federal government waste billions of dollars sitting on empty and underused buildings," Mica said.
"I am continuing to call attention to the outrageous losses on federally-owned assets with incredible but squandered potential to generate revenue," Mica continued. "Today's hearing in an empty federal building in Florida continues our year-and-a-half campaign to turn federally-owned properties, sitting idle for years and bleeding the taxpayers by the millions, into productive assets."
He says taxpayers spent a million dollars each year it sat vacant for the past five years.
