Our tax dollars hard at work.  $700,000 tax paid homes for border agents in the middle of the desert where $90,000 was the median price for similar houses sold the same year.

Who says the government isn’t wasteful?  Ok, besides a liberal Democratic communist?

I have lived in Arizona my entire life and have been in Ajo many many times and I can assure you, this is nuts:

The federal government wasted millions of dollars in building a housing project for Border Patrol agents in Arizona near the Mexican border, spending nearly $700,000 per house in a small town where the average home costs less than $90,000, a watchdog report found.

The analysis by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found that U.S. Customs and Border Protection overspent by about $4.6 million on new houses and mobile homes in the small town of Ajo southwest of Phoenix.

The agency has spent about $17 million for land, 21 two- and three-bedroom houses and 20 mobile homes. Construction was completed in December 2012.

From the Arizona Republic article published last August when this carnival came to Ajo:

The most recent project is the development that opened in January on South Sahuaro Street. The GSA awarded Tempe-based Sundt Construction Inc. a contract in 2011 for $10,356,331 to build an enclave of 21 energy-efficient houses, as well as streets and sidewalks.

The houses received a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum rating, according to the GSA. The site is about 11.6 acres and is zoned for an additional 25 houses.

Construction cost more than $11 million in all, according to an analysis of contracts by The Republic. About $325,000 of the extra expenses went toward problems in developing the land, including rock removal and unforeseen soil conditions, and other funding went to upgrading appliances and improving aesthetics.

That total rises to about $13 million including all costs “spent or obligated to this project,” wrote Robin Coachman, a CBP housing and project manager based in California, in a 2012 letter to the editor published in the Ajo Copper News.

Not all of that went to building the houses themselves. The project also included an environmental assessment, purchasing houses already on the land, buying out life leases as well as relocating homeowners. Sundt also constructed a small common area. Sundt referred all questions to the CBP.

What an incredible scam.  Congratulations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Sundt Construction, for bilking Americans out of their tax dollars for a project that is so far beyond the scope of necessity or profit, it borders on criminal.  No, it doesn’t “border”….it IS criminal.

So, not only has this debacle been busted by the Inspector General (the hardest working man in government today, I’m guessing), we have a completely ineffectual border patrol, unable to stem the tide of illegals invading the country, due to an ineffectual President.

At least they have $700,000 homes to come home to after not enforcing immigration laws all day long.

I wonder how long it will take before CBP starts building $700,000 homes for illegals?  Or maybe a golf course or two for the POTUS – Ajo has gorgeous winter time weather!

Sundt Construction is probably joyfully writing up bids for the project.  They have a sweet, sweet gig, don’t they?