Mitt Romney's Olympics Bailed Out by Tax Payers ($1.3 billion), NOT his amazing leadership.

July 21, 2012 09:15 PM
Mitt Romney's Olympics Bailed Out by Tax Payers

By Heather

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/mitt-romneys-olympics-bailed-out-tax-payer



We've seen the Obama campaign going after Mitt Romney for his time at Bain Capital. I think with the Olympics approaching we're about to hear more about this story from them very soon. From Up With Chris Hayes: Mitt Romney and federal money for the Olympics:

Much has been made recently about Mitt Romney's involvement with Bain while he was heading the Salt Lake Olympics Organizing Committee, but what about his actual involvement with the Olympics themselves? Romney has made his "turnaround" of the Olympics that had been tainted by an international bribery scandal a point of his campaign. He regards it as proof of his amazing leadership ability and patriotism. So, how did Romney bail out the Olympics. Well, he didn't. We did.

A September 2000 report from the United States General Accounting Office tells us that tax payers paid nearly $1.3 billion for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. The majority of that, 80% of that, in fact, $1 billion of that, was spent not on the game themselves, but on infrastructure upgrades. With 51% going to improving highways and 28% to improve mass transit. [...]

To put that into perspective, we, the taxpayers, spent roughly $75 million on the Los Angeles Olympics and $609 million on the Atlanta Olympics.