First off, it's a government site so everything is a little more expensive. Secondly, I think that million dollar price tag is about right. Let's say you have

First off, it's a government site so everything is a little more expensive. Secondly, I think that million dollar price tag is about right. Let's say you have 10 full time people building and maintaining the site. Developers, dev ops, security, pointy haired managers, etc. Add in the hardware/hosting costs and you have a million dollars right there.