The same contractor whose liner peeled out of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool just months after a $14.7 million taxpayer-funded renovation is getting hired back to fix it — and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says they "did a fantastic job." Ordinary Americans footing the bill should ask what it takes to actually get fired in this town.
The initial renovation cost $14.7 million. That number has since ballooned past $16 million, according to TMZ, and there is no announced date or price tag for the new round of repairs. The pool's liner peeled off shortly after installation and the water turned into an algae-infested eyesore — yet the company responsible is being brought back for another shot.
Burgum told CNN's Dana Bash the original contractor "did a fantastic job" and will perform the new repairs. He echoed President Trump's claim that the liner failure was the work of vandals, not shoddy workmanship. Former Olympic athlete David Hearn has been indicted for allegedly vandalizing the pool when he touched the water. Whether one man's touch can undo a multi-million-dollar liner installation is a question nobody in Washington seems interested in answering.
This is the swamp in plain view. A company burns through taxpayer cash on a botched job, and instead of being shown the door, it gets a return engagement — with a Cabinet secretary vouching for the quality of work that literally fell apart on his watch. TMZ framed the rehire as the administration believing in "second chances"; The American Conservative, meanwhile, didn't cover the Reflecting Pool story at all, devoting its coverage instead to Iran negotiations and a potential Netanyahu White House visit. One outlet treated a $16 million taxpayer boondoggle as light entertainment; the other buried it entirely in favor of foreign policy coverage that treats overseas commitments as more newsworthy than domestic waste.
The pattern is bipartisan and familiar. Contractors fail, costs escalate, and the same players get cycled back through the revolving door. No word yet on what the new repairs will cost, whether the contract was competitively bid, or who owns the company collecting the checks. The question isn't whether the pool will get fixed — it's whether anyone in Washington will ever be held responsible for the money poured down the drain the first time.
