The jokes may write themselves, but critics are outraged after the General Services Administration—an independent federal agency that President Donald Trump claims reports to him—signaled that iconic government buildings, integral to the nation’s landscape for decades, may go up for sale.
“The US government is considering selling a sprawling portfolio of properties across 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to shrink the federal workforce — and the buildings it occupies,” Bloomberg reports.
Care to buy the U.S. Department of Justice’s headquarters? You may be able to. In fact, the GSA has listed more than 400 federal buildings as not being central to the mission of the U.S. government, and thus, ripe for the auction block.
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“An inventory of 443 ‘non-core’ assets posted by the General Services Administration Tuesday included many of the prime commercial buildings that house local and regional offices for federal agencies and provide services for taxpayers, Social Security recipients, farmers and workers.”
Also on the possible auction block: buildings that house the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Department of Labor, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“The names of the buildings also suggest their historic legacies. The John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Boston and the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco could be sold, as well as the Rosa Parks Federal Building in Detroit and the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Building in Atlanta,” Bloomberg reports. “Some of the properties could also be sold and leased back to the federal government.”
That last point hit some critics hard, many of whom suggested the Trump administration would sell top government buildings and then lease them back to the federal government at exorbitant rates.
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“Just because something is on the non-core list doesn’t mean it’s for sale by any means,” former investment banker Michael Peters, who was “tapped by Trump to lead the Public Buildings Service,” told Bloomberg. “But if someone put an offer on the table, we would evaluate it.”
The Independent also reports that the “GSA also says a large swath of prime real estate near the White House, including the Office of Personnel Management’s Theodore Roosevelt Building HQ, the building used to house offices of the United States Trade Representative, the headquarters of the American Red Cross, and the Old Post Office building — a national historic landmark that was formerly leased by President Donald Trump’s eponymous real estate company for use as a hotel — are ‘non-core’ and therefore ripe for disposal as well.”
According to attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, the GSA’s list includes “11 buildings with immigration courts (and often ICE), in Baltimore, Boston, El Paso, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Tucson, Portland, Sacramento, Seattle, and Van Nuys.”
Appearing to walk through the GSA list, Reichlin-Melnick added, “This list is insane. It even includes things like the GSA-run HEATING PLANT which ensures that federal buildings have steam heat and cold water.”
“Further insane things on this list include a PORT OF ENTRY into the United States along the U.S.-Canada border, nearly a dozen federal courthouses, and the IRS National Computer Center, which houses the agency’s primary mainframe,” he noted. “It’s legit nuts.”
Appearing to mock the idea of selling off iconic federal buildings, The Bulwark’s Sam Stein asked, “why stop there? Sell the White House too. Do we really need both the House AND the Senate. Let’s get rid of one of those.”