President says he renovated the Reflecting Pool for $1.9 million; the prior estimate was $350 million.

At the Small Business Summit this week, the President shared a personal favorite story: he renovated the National Mall’s reflecting pool for $1.9 million. Did it himself, basically. Didn’t take a government estimate to do it. The government estimate, he added, was $350 million.

Three hundred and fifty million. With an M.

Buddy. I have run a casino floor. I have ordered fixtures. I have gotten quotes from contractors who absolutely did try to charge me for the moon and a free van. Three hundred and fifty million dollars for the reflecting pool is not an estimate. That is a typo. That is a vendor confused about which decimal he was on.

Either the federal government was about to spend $350 million on a hole full of water, in which case the GSA needs to be on television apologizing, or the President made up a number to make himself look like a deal-maker. Possibly both. Possibly the truth is on a 6:1 split somewhere in the middle, where the original estimate was $35 million for a complete restoration with new pumps and the President crashed in with a contractor who scrubbed the tiles for $1.9 and called it a day.

Whichever it is, somebody at the federal procurement level is either lying about quotes, or somebody at the podium is lying about renovations, and “the President is making up the dollar amounts in front of small business owners” is the kind of fun fact you would expect, ordinarily, to lead the news.

Instead, the room nodded. Because everybody in the room had been told the President was a deal-maker, and a man saying he saved 348 million dollars sounds like a deal.

Funny how that works.

Funny how nobody in that room asked to see the invoice.