McCain Railed Against Romney's Pork Barrel Olympics, but Failed to Stop Massive Use of Federal Funds

Plenty of muck for both candidates surrounding Romney's pork barrel Olympics of 2002.

Check out  LA Times' "McCain, Romney acrimony dates back to Olympics "

Besides the fight over whether and how much to fund the 2002 Olympics with federal dollars, the Times finds other soft spots in Romney's claim to have worked miracles in the Salt Lake Olympics.

Excerpt:

On the campaign trail, Romney cites his efforts to rescue the Games from scandal, lure new corporate sponsors and fix a huge budget shortfall. The Olympics ultimately proved both a sporting and financial success.

But some critics claim Romney overstates his effect. They argue that federal tax dollars effectively provided huge subsidies for each ticket sold, and that the largest corporate sponsorships were in place before he arrived.

"He had his role, but he didn't save the Games by any stretch of the imagination," said Ken Bullock, a former board member of the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee and now head of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, a nonpartisan municipal group. "He was very opportunistic in trying to portray himself as the white knight."

Romney "takes credit for cleaning everything up," complained Stephen Pace, who helped run Utahns for Responsible Public Spending, a local nonprofit group. "How much he really did, how much initiative he showed, is hard to tell."

...

In the end, neither Romney nor McCain were correct in their public statements about how much the Olympics cost.

In response to a request from McCain, the General Accounting Office -- the research arm of Congress that is now known as the Government Accountability Office -- reported in September 2000 that federal agencies would spend $1.3 billion in and around Salt Lake City, or less than McCain claimed.

Most of the money was allocated to improve or build highways and transit systems, not expenses directly related to staging the games.

Bennett, Romney's chief backer, struck back the following year.

He asked the GAO to recalculate the federal tab minus the heavy construction and infrastructure. Not surprisingly, the tally was far smaller: $342 million, but still more than Romney had said.

And still really the total was altogether $1.3 billion.  Romney isn't very honest is he?   

Romney challenged McCain's arithmetic, arguing that taxpayers would provide only $250 million. 

The report shows that McCain isn't a very effective leader either.  But apparently the big money people in the GOP have mostly switched to backing the Senator.  They need someone who can win to keep siphoning their corporate welfare and wars for resources off the tax dollars paid by the middle class.

tags: romney  mccain  salt lake olympics  pork barrel politics  national debt  john mccain  senate  

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