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Douglas C. Pizac / AP
Mitt Romney is shown in October 2001, when he was president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. On Saturday evening, Romney spoke at a celebration honoring the 10-year anniversary of the games.
Mitt Romney oversaw a wide-ranging lobbying campaign to snare tens of millions of dollars in federal earmarks for the Salt Lake City Olympic Games at a time critics were charging the games had become a prime example of out-of-control “pork barrel” spending, according to Senate lobbying records.
Romney’s role in overseeing the 2002 Olympics, long seen as a major political asset, is providing new fodder for political adversaries. The Democratic National Committee released an attack video Friday assailing him for running “the most expensive games in U.S. history.”
GOP rival Rick Santorum also accused Romney Saturday of "hypocrisy" for raising the issue of earmarks given his record at the Olympics. The Romney campaign responded that Santorum was "shooting himself in the foot" over the issue.
In recent weeks, Romney has portrayed himself as an uncompromising fiscal conservative and criticized Santorum for being a “strong defender” of federal earmarks. “Look, I’m in favor of a ban on earmarks,” Romney said during a recent interview on Sean Hannity’s television show. “I think spending in Washington is out of control.”
But Senate lobbying records show that the Salt Lake City Olympics Committee under Romney spent $3.5 million employing five lobbying firms in addition to its own in-house lobbying shop. Among their goals: winning federal earmarks that included $60 million for "perimeter" security; $15.8 million for "international sporting competitions"; $3 million for an extension of a Salt Lake City light rail project; as well as millions more for communications equipment, sewer projects and other programs aimed at supporting the Olympics.
The overall federal cost of the 2002 Olympics has been estimated at about $1.5 billion, although Romney defenders say much of this was put in place before he took over the Olympics Committee in 1999. But Romney later touted his efforts in his book about the Winter Olympics, “Turnaround,” writing that he directed his chief Washington lobbyist “to bring in more federal funding than had ever been appropriated for any Olympics, summer or winter.”
And he made his success in doing so a selling point when he ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002. “I was successful in organizing the Olympics, got record funds from the federal government," he said then.
Santorum seized on Romney’s aggressive pursuit of the federal earmarks at a campaign appearance Saturday in Columbus, Ohio.
"He heroically bailed out the Salt Lake City Olympic Games by heroically going to Congress and asking them for tens of millions of dollars to bail out the Salt Lake Games -- in an earmark, in an earmark for the Salt Lake Olympic Games," he said. “Does the word hypocrisy come to mind?”
Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, responded: “Sometimes when you shoot from the hip, you end up shooting yourself in the foot. There is a pretty wide gulf between seeking money for post 9/11 security at the Olympics and seeking earmarks for polar bear exhibits at the Pittsburgh Zoo. Mitt Romney wants to ban earmarks. Senator Santorum wants more ‘Bridges to Nowhere’” — referring to a proposed bridge in Alaska that was canceled after it became a symbol of pork barrel spending.
Saul also said that “the majority of federal funds for the Salt Lake Games was for security purposes," and noted they took place "just months after months after 9/11," when "security was heightened.” She added: “Taxpayer support of the games was only 18 percent, enabled by Mitt Romney's ability to secure new corporate sponsorships to bring the taxpayer tab down."
Romney’s stewardship of the 2002 Winter Olympics is getting fresh scrutiny this weekend amid conflicting claims about his record. Romney flew back to Salt Lake City Friday for a campaign fundraiser -- co-hosted by his former chief Olympics deputy and attracting many leaders of the city’s business community. He also was participating Saturday evening in a gala civic celebration commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Games.
His campaign — and financial supporters — see Romney’s Olympics stewardship as a prime example of his leadership and management skills under fire. And they are hoping to make more of it: A media firm hired by Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney super PAC, also is in Salt Lake City this weekend to film footage about Romney and the Olympics for use in upcoming television ads.
Then the head of Bain Capital, Romney was recruited in 1999 to become president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, or SLOC, which ran the games, after it was engulfed in a bribery scandal that resulted in the loss of sponsors and a huge projected deficit.
“Mitt described it as stepping into an empty elevator shaft,” said Fraser Bullock, a former Bain Capital colleague who served as Romney’s No. 2 at the Salt Lake Olympics committee. “We were in deep trouble financially, operationally, morale-wise. It was about as difficult as you can imagine.” (Bullock co-hosted the Romney campaign fundraiser in Salt Lake City and has contributed $100,000 to the Romney Super PAC.)
Romney, Bullock says, engineered an “extraordinary turnaround” of the Olympics -- restoring confidence, tapping his business connections to bring in new corporate sponsors and slashing costs. In one of his more memorable moves, he put an end to the committee’s habit of catering lavish boardroom lunches, replacing them with Dominos’s pizzas.
“He bought a pizza for $5, cut it into eight slices, charged $1 dollar a slice,” said Bullock. “So we could make $8 for a pizza that cost $5 and have a profit of $3. That sent a great message throughout the entire organization that we would watch every penny.”
In the end, Romney is credited by supporters like Bullock with turning a projected $479 million deficit into a $100 million profit. But detractors charge he also used the games for self-promotion, even sanctioning official Olympic pins bearing his image with such captions as "We Love You, Mitt."
In turning around the 2002 games, Romney got a big helping hand from U.S. taxpayers. The federal government poured $1.5 billion into the Salt Lake games – more than twice the amount spent on any previous U.S. Olympics.
Republican Sen. John McCain called it a “fleecing” of the U.S. Treasury.
Santorum accuses Romney of hypocrisy on earmarks
“The Olympic Games supposedly hosted and funded by Salt Lake City, which began in corruption and bribery, has now turned into is an incredible pork-barrel project for Salt Lake City and its environs.” McCain said in a Sept. 19, 2000, speech on the Senate floor.
Although Romney spokeswoman Saul asserted that a majority of federal funding for the Olympics was for security, McCain, in leveling his charges, relied on a General Accounting Office report that documented a litany of direct and indirect federal earmarks for the Salt Lake Olympics that had little if anything to do with security. Among them: $645 million for new highways and roads, including a repaved mountain road to the Snow Basin ski resort, owned by a wealthy local oilman. There was also hundreds of millions more for light rail, parking lots, bus rentals, sewer construction, housing for the news media and weather forecasting — in addition to $161 million for security (a figure that climbed even higher after 9/11.)
“I do not understand how we Republicans call ourselves conservatives and then treat the taxpayer dollars in this fashion,” McCain said in his 2000 speech. “This has to stop.”
Bullock, Romney’s chief deputy at the Olympics, disputed suggestions that there was any “federal bailout” of the Olympics and noted that most of the funding that critics objected to was planned “years before Mitt got there.” Former GOP Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah served on the Senate Appropriations Committee and is credited with inserting many of the Olympics earmarks.
But, as president of the Salt Lakes Organizing Committee, Romney fully embraced – and aggressively defended – the earmarks. In an Aug. 18, 2000, letter to the GAO, Romney called the Olympics “a massive undertaking” and added: “Recognizing that our government spends billions of dollars to maintain wartime capability, it is entirely appropriate to invest several hundred million dollars to promote peace.”
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I'm confused - how is the fact that it was a few months after 9/11 possibly an excuse for the earmarks?
It seems they already had the earmarks secured well before 9/11, therefore they weren't applied for as "for post 9/11 security".
How about some follow up journalists? Why do you just write what they say without questioning the validity?
There is no follow-up. For some reason, candidates are allowed to lie and deceive and misinform and journalists are not following-up and asking the tough questions or pointing out the deception. Thay are supposed to be conducting the job interview for us. That is their job.
I've been on quite a few job interviews and was asked tough questions and there was intense follow-up as there should be when interviewing for a job. If I told a lie or attempted to decieve the interviewer, I would expect to be called on it and not be considered for the job.
I would not blame the interviewer either, which is absurd.
The presidency of the United States is the most important job on the planet so why are we so willing to allow deeply flawed candidates who simply ignore the tough questions and/or lie and deceive to get away with it without calling them on it? We should be demanding journalists do the same job interview on the candidates as any one of us participates in when we are seeking employment and nothing less.
Yes, I think Barbra Streisand says it best with this blog linked below. I know she is only an entertainer, but when she says the following, she could not be more right.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbra-streisand/mainstream-media-gop-primary_b_1253542.html
The ONLY reason Willard agreed to oversee the Olympics was because Salt Lake City and Utah is the home of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a/k/a/ the Mormon church. I am certain the leadership of that religious organization asked him to step in to prevent their home city and state, where at that time they were half the population of Utah, from the embarrassment of failure. His entire life revolves around that church and he would do anything, including leaving his lucrative career as a corporate raider making millions putting others out of work, with a guaranteed generous pension, of course.
If the games were held in any other city, Willard would have had nothing to do with it as he never would have even been approached.
Willard's most glaring character flaw, he doesn't have a clue and he consistently says things that prove his lack of character, integrity, empathy and compassion over and over and over again. He did not care one bit about the Olympic Games or their success except to save his church and religion from the embarrassment of the failure of the games in the home city of that church.
“If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.” –Willard Mitt Romney, November 2008
"I should tell my story. I'm also unemployed." -Willard Mitt Romney, June 2011
"Corporations are people my friend!" -Willard Mitt Romney, August 2011
"As to what to do for the housing industry specifically - and are there things that you can do to encourage housing? One is, don’t try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom, allow investors to buy up homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up, and let it turn around and come back up." -Willard Mitt Romney, October 2011
"I'm running for office for Pete's sake, we can't have illegals." -Willard Mitt Romney, October 2011
"I'll tell you what, ten-thousand bucks? $10,000 bet?" -Willard Mitt Romney, December 2011
"Never get involved in politics if you have to win an election to pay a mortgage." -Willard Mitt Romney, January 2012
“Then, I get speakers fees from time to time, but not very much." -Willard Mitt Romney January 2012 (disclosure, the amount WMR earned from speaking fees in one year is $374,327.62)
“....but someone who has lived in the real streets of America...” –Willard Mitt Romney, january 2012
"I like being able to fire people who provide services to me." -Willard Mitt Romney, January 2012
"There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip." – Willard Mitt Romney, January 2012
“I didn’t inherit.” – Willard Mitt Romney, January 2012
"The banks are scared to death, of course, because they think they're going to go out of business. They're afraid that if they write all these loans off, they're going to go broke. And so they're feeling the same thing you're feeling." -Willard Mitt Romney, January 2012
“Ha. Ha. You know, I wish I could claim I’m Hispanic. That would help me in the Latino community here is Florida and around the country.” -Willard Mitt Romney, January 2012
“I'm not concerned about the very poor… we will hear from the Democrat party the plight of the poor… that’s not my focus.” –Willard Mitt Romney, January 2012
Babbles, Romney was a net job creator at Bain, based just on the jobs added at Staples and Sports Authority alone minus the 10K or less that were lost at other companies.
Chesty, Sorry, those jobs are mostly part time and most full-time positions pay mininmum wage and have minimal benefits. That is poverty wages, not something to brag about.
Willard was a corporate raider, took companies and gutted them, leveraging all they were worth to make millions fro himsalf and his few investors resulting in the company being destroyed, and the middle class jobs of thousands along with it.
Nice try though.
willard mittins & shamtorum a laugh a minute. The Circus continues.
Either one is going to get "SMOKED" in Nov.
GOD BLESS AMERICA ! ! !
Frank- Really a writer a "hired assassin" Hey fact check it. Liberal media, blah blah blah! Can't wait till the carpet bombing of untrue and distorted ads, put out by which ever clown, the GOP/baggers pick. Fear, this assortment of clowns is a gift, to the Obama adm. Obama/Biden 2012
Neither Romney or Santorum have shown that their earmark efforts addressed needs that were essential to the constituents they served. We don't see the lives of low and middle income earners improved, but Santorum and Romney have both been financially rewarded.
Wow none of you get it. None of you.
i know this is slightly off topic but i have to say... earlier today there was a report about how obamas pledge to double exports by 2015 wont come true and yesterday how gas prices have doubled since 2008 yet these articles werent open for discussion or posts. I hate it when republicans and conservatives complain about liberal media but i have to ask why is this article open for posts while the others were not? romneys job was to get funding for, and make a success of, the olympic games. he did that!! whats the issue here?
Exactly! Came through on his promise, what more do you want? Thank you slight right.
Interesting you bring that up. Since both Bill ORielly and Lou Dobbs agreed that the petroleum companies shouldn't be exporting US gasoline while prices are skyrocketing.
Funny, couldn't comment on that subject. One both progressives and conservatives might agree on???
Romney is the poster boy of all the special deals the 1% have available. Good luck getting the 99% vote.
im tired of phoney percentages. so obama should have a 99% rating?
Can't take someone agreeing with you on media coverage??
Oh, the 99% got you. Romney is the perfect example of a corporate hatchet-man . He'll sell you or anyone else out in a micro- second.
To take power he will say ANYTHING to ANYBODY. And then reverse his stance instantly.
I at least respect Santorum and Paul. Gingrich? Well , if you could do stuff like that to your wives...You'd be loyal to us right????????????
Oh and Obama?? Get tough with China?? NEVER HAPPENED. Stop bailed out companies bonuses? NEVER HAPPENED.
Here's a task for today....Stop US gasoline companies from exporting US gas to China to inflate domestic cost. Won't happen.........................
I do not like either side. I just like the R's less...................For good reasons..........
scar, i actually think you make fair points. gingrich... i completely agree, santorum... well the man denies global warming for starters, cant win his own state in a senatorial election etc etc... paul means well but is well off his rocker but when it comes to romney i have to disagree. i think romney is a guy who is caught up in a primary. he finds himself forced to go right while he isnt comfortable there. i wish he would say, " who gives a shizt that im from massachusettes, if you ever want a republican to get elected in a moderate or liberal state we are going to have to learn to focus on major issues that we have a lead on while working with the other side. The health care law i wrote in mass was for my state, not the country. its a states rights issue. I met with the democratic leadership every single friday to discuss the issues and that willingness to cooperate doesnt exist in washington today." unfortunately, that reasoning hasnt happened to this point, but again i think its due to the primaries. I honestly feel that obama supporters should not take anything for granted because if romney is obamas opponent come crunch time all of a sudden hes going to highlight why everyone is calling him a "right of center" republican and that is where the country aligns.
Unfortunately, this is not only about Romney, it is about the Mormon Church. How many elders were convicted of illegal behavior in the successful attempts to lure the Olympics to Salt Lake? If anyone has doubts about the intentions and integrity of the Mormon Church, they have only to examine the sordid history of the Salt Lake City Olympics. Bottom line, the Mormon Church will do anything in its power to present a facade of respectability to the outside world.
Big deal , It was 11 years ago ...The country was better then financially . Now we have no money , were in huge debt and he said he would stop ear marks....things change in 11 years....I did...
I think a lot of people missed the main point here; Romney cut Olympic costs, and turned a deficit of over $400 million into a profit of over $100 million. Our country is in the deficit big time, how long do you want it to stay that way? Four more years? I admit, he isn't perfect, but who do you know in this race that can do a better job on this one? That's the one I'm voting for, he's got a good head on his shoulders, and he sincerely wants to help.
Don't believe me? Look up how he helped his partner at Bain when his partner's daughter was lost - you can find it on snopes. He's a good choice, and he sincerely wants to do what's right. I'll be one of the guys who was glad I voted for him.
I, there's nothing to this story. The whole thing is from the political playbook of trying to nitpick the details of your opponent's strength to muddy up his successes and try to confuse the stupid.
Romney did a great job there. Santorum should be president, not him of course, but the Demoncats are desperate to try to invent non-controversies like him making sure the FEDS kicked in extra cash to make the thing a success.
It should be noted, the Federal Government Budget was actually balanced that year, so an extra 100 million for Romney's request, on top of the 1.4 billion they had already given, wasn't that big of a deal.
Your missing the 1.5 billion fed cost.
In turning around the 2002 games, Romney got a big helping hand from U.S. taxpayers. The federal government poured $1.5 billion into the Salt Lake games – more than twice the amount spent on any previous U.S. Olympics.
Your addition is flawed. More than twice means the others received only 750 million. So if this cost the taxpayer 650 million and your declaring victory???????And that would be at the previous spending level.
Chalk this one down to the same mindset that said Iraqi oil would pay for the Iraqi war.
When did he borrow/receive 1.5 billion for the Olympic games? I studied and reported on the whole event and never saw any such figure. Will you source your information for verification please?
Referring to Romney being the cause of that 1.5 billion being issued for those of you not familiar with the situation. Those funds were already in place before he took over at the Olympics. So that one doesn't work, and I wouldn't try to blame him for the heat wave or natural disasters either, that would be even harder to prove.
Talk about Liberal Media Bias, it's a story Romney got about $100 million in infrastructure funding for the Olympics from the government and we're supposed to make a big deal out of this?
Earmarks for the once-every-30 years Winter Olympics, fine if it's a billion ish. 100 billion for stuff like teapot museums, not so fine.
I think when we have the Olympics here, that is something the government can help make sure it comes off ok, for a billion or so, get all the rest from private groups.
In Real News, Scott Brown of Taxachusetts is leading Elizabeth Warren by 9% in the latest Suffolk/ 7 News poll from Friday, 49% to 40%.
Lol, it looks like we'll actually have a Republican senator in Massachusetts for at least 8 years in a row!
Boooooyah.
In Real News, Scott Brown of Taxachusetts is leading Elizabeth Warren by 9% in the latest Suffolk/ 7 News poll from Friday, 49% to 40%.
Lol, it looks like we'll actually have a Republican senator in Massachusetts for at least 8 years in a row!
Senate Lobbying Records? Senate Lobbying Records? Who has access to "Senate Lobbying Records". There's a whole lot of Senatorial criminal corruption that would make a daily newspaper a foot thick, hidden from the working class.
Do you remember when George W. Bush was lying like a freaking dog and John Kerry interjected: "A-hem, excuse me, but the President is not being forthright with the American people."? Well, that would have been a good time to reveal some of the criminal corruption we've been enduring. But, Kerry never followed-up because he was as criminally corrupt as the rest of 'em.
Ditto with Obama. None of them are worthy.
Willard continues to amuse..
Yup, scratch a blathering fiscal conservative, and find an unrepentant pork whore..
Earmarks for the house !!!!!
Another hidden and dishonest attack Ad by MSNBC on Republican candidates. This is another of the unthinking and wrong headed rational to try and paint Mr. Romney in a bad light. The Olympics is the Olympics it was not invented by Mr. Romney. The rules say if you want to have a successful Olympics you need money and if you need money you go where you can to get it. These are the rules . Mr. Romney did not invent them either. Would it have been better that the Olympics failed in all its sucesses? Is that what MSNBC wants? That is the logical end to this stupid argument. Does MSNBC not play by the rules of entertainment? Yes. They are not a news organization although they pretend to be. They play by these new rules of so called news organizations to dig up the dirt on everyone they don't like. Where is their action on ethics that they seem to demand from all Republicans and not Democrats or themselves.? Another Op-Ed from MSNBC and nothing more.
So they put those words into senator McCains mouth on the subject. What party does he belong too??? Could swear I saw a R in front of his name.
On the new rules?? Their old rules, Murdock made them a ART FORM. To bad some of his cronies will see a jail cell.
Scar you are just pushing more hate. What does anything you have to say have to do with the topic at hand. You can't win a resaonable common sence argument so you point your finger and say " look over there". What you are saying is spurious and full of negative hate. I suppose you like living in that place but your country needs some positive action not this continuoius attack politics. He ran the olympics.! Could you do that? No! He made it a success using the current rules that were legal and in place!. Could you do that? No! I am wondering can you do anything at all other that bitch? Make your country a better place like Mr. Romney is tryiing to.
Sounds like willard was standing behind his lobbyist posse, cracking the whip for a record amount of federal earmarks..
Go willard !!!
""But Romney later touted his efforts in his book about the Winter Olympics, “Turnaround,” writing that he directed his chief Washington lobbyist “to bring in more federal funding than had ever been appropriated for any Olympics, summer or winter.”""
Kick-em in the ass president, Obama kick-em in the ass one more time. Obama in 2012!!!
An excellent case in point:
Right Wing fanatics continue to post on this board of a News net work that reports, and publishes contrary to what they (fanatics) believe.I have a very good thought that the "Liberals" NEVER watch Fox because they KNOW Fox is firmly against what they believe.In essence, when ANYONE goes ANY WHERE that they obviously HATE and incessantly return.The ONLY motive they have is "TROUBLE MAKING".For the record.I don't like Fox Tabloid journalism.I NEVER watched Fox until I began visting the VA Hospital near me in West Virginia where EVERY TV in EVERY waiting room is tuned in to Fox.I simply get up,walk out until they call my name.epilogue? I will NOT partake of ANYTHING that I don't like especially what UPSETS me.These Right Wing kerwhangadoddles continue coming here to be TORTURED by what they don't LIKE.Liberal,liberal,liberal is ALL you damn well hear.These MAJOR head cases are to stupid to realize that they are not going to change ANYONES ways to conform to THEIR warped minded standards.Since you don't LIKE what MsnNbc prints and publish.You are damn FOOLS to even READ it.I would NOT be caught DEAD on Fox OR watching Rush acid head OR maniacal Hannity.Liberals---LAY and STAY on their ass.They are FOOLS.Troublesome,and trouble making FOOLS.They don't like what's here.They SHOULD have enough sense to simply LEAVE and STAY gone.
Actually Lou Dobbs & ORielly stated they were against the petroleum companies shipping gasoline to China and Europe while increasing costs here in the US. Rather progressive of them.
The subject was allowed no debate here.
Guess a subject both the Right & Left can agree on ...isn't worth opening to posts.
Apparently Americans agreeing on a subject is NOT NEWS.
So Buddy is so entrenched in what he must know are his silly entitlement beliefs that he is afraid of contrary points of view. Maybe you should just stay home, un-subscribe to TV and papers and radio, get a six pack and watch old Trailer park Boys dvds and talk to your cat for fear of hapchance coming upon a different point of view. Good luck Buddy.
By the way Buddy if you go to a Vet hospital than you must at some point have fought for the right to free speach and thought. Or are you an inposter?
Just when I thought Mittens was a conservative.
I can't believe the best the Republicans can offer are: a guy who killed his dog; one who wants to make the Moon the 51st state - at taxpayer expense; and one who brings home a dead fetus to meet the kids.
Ever notice how our next President, Mitt Romney just looks Presidential??
Obama?? He looks sleazy. Creepy even. If you bought a used car from Obama, you would know, deep down in your gut, that you've been taken.
ABO 2012.
Romney's methods are becoming more apparent everyday. Obama and Romney are cut out of same 2 by 4. There is a science to getting elected. ...Tell the voters what they want to hear and promise them anything and everything. Who will America give the "A" to in November? The problem this country faces is with the stupidity of the voter. Politician's know this and use it to their advantage.
Fiesty Redhead must have gotten banned. Now if all the other idiots would get booted this might make for an interesting read.
None of the other candidates ever did anything that big before so they have nothing to compare themselves to Mitt Romney and his ability.
All they can do is play judge to something they never did before and probably never will.
I can only see good in what Mitt Romney did. Notwithstanding that many earmarks were in place beforehand, everything done was for the creatiion of a better Olympics.
I was in Munich in 1972 with my wife and son watching the terrorists kill the Israilie athletes.