Throwback Thursday: Army Corps of Engineers Spent $33M on Beach for Luxury Hotels
In 1985, the Army Corp of Engineers spent $33 million – worth $89 million in 2023 dollars – to develop and renovate a lavish beachfront for luxury hotels and condos in Florida.
Sen. William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, awarded the Army Corp of Engineers his Golden Fleece Award for this outrageous misuse of taxpayers’ money.
The work was mostly done in the Miami Beach area on Florida’s East Coast and consisted of dredging offshore sand and putting it on the beach to artificially widen it. However, natural forces continually erode the beach, and the work must be repeated to maintain the progress from the project, meaning a never-ending investment in the area would be needed to maintain it.
While this may be a laudable goal if it benefited the local community, this particular section of the beach mainly housed rich tourists that stayed at ritzy hotels, and wealthy condo owners that owned this segment of the beach.
Local projects should be funded locally, and in this case should have been funded by the wealthy hotels and condos that benefited from it.
This project is also an example of mission creep, where projects get bigger and costlier as they progress. The government originally intended to renovate 10 miles of beachfront. Then, it decided to add another 2.5 miles. The Corps also designated an additional $17 million for the project as it progressed, on top of the originally planned $33 million.
This unsustainable and costly project stuck taxpayers with a bill that benefited wealthy landowners, not everyday citizens.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
This and all other original articles created by RealClearInvestigations may be republished for free with attribution. (These terms do not apply to outside articles linked on the site.)
We provide our stories for free but they are expensive to produce. Help us continue to publish distinctive journalism by making a contribution today to RealClearInvestigations.
Support RealClearInvestigations →
