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South Platte Sentinel Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013 Page 7 Opinion Potpourrivia By Bud Christian It was the U.S. taxpayers who saved the Olympics During the presidential campaign last year, I noted that Mitt Romney repeatedly and consistently listed “saving the Olympics” as one of his primary achievements. But, because it all happened a decade or more ago, my personal recollection of the events surrounding the Olympic Games was a bit cloudy so I did some research to find out for myself what the facts were and what was purely campaign rhetoric and puffery for the sake of enhancing his personal resume. By the former Massachusetts Governor’s own admission, it was only with the government’s support that he was able to pull off the Olympics he so often heralds as one of his career’s greatest accomplishments. “Without question, we simply could not host Games in Salt Lake if it were not for the enormous spending and services of the federal government,” Romney had said in a 2001 testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee during a hearing about cooperation between federal, state, local and private agencies for the Salt Lake City Olympics. “When I came to the Games two years ago, following the revelations of bid impropriety, there was nothing which caused greater anxiety than whether or not we could count on this critical federal support,” he said, before thanking both the Clinton and Bush administrations for being involved with his committee’s planning efforts “every step of the way.” Hope for the 2002 Olympics was also restored through $342 million in direct federal funding and an additional $1.1 billion in indirect financing from Washington. According to Romney at the time, former President George W. Bush specifically included Olympic items in the budget he submitted to Congress. Mitt Romney’s Olympics claim ignores one key fact about the turnaround: He didn’t build it. The facts show that Romney received an unprecedented taxpayer bailout to help his effort -so much taxpayer funding that Sen. John McCain called it a “national disgrace.” According to McCain at the time, “You’ve got well over $1 billion that’s just a rip-off of the taxpayers, and, you know, is really a national disgrace…Actually, there should be a federal investigation.” Romney’s response to McCain, on the CBS Evening News in February 2002: “Sen. McCain, I believe, raises a very good question. What should the role of the federal government be with regards to the Olympics? Should it provide the security? Should it provide the highways and bridges necessary to get people to venues? In my view, the answer is, unequivocally, yes.” 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. If you drive west on I-80 through Park City and into and around Salt Lake City today, you are most likely using and seeing some of that infrastructure. Romney, who promised to slash federal spending if elected president, rarely acknowledged the federal support for the 2002 games on the campaign trail. His aides said much of it was for increased security costs after the 2001 terrorist attacks, which occurred about five months earlier. But Romney didn’t mention the commitments the government had already made to cover costs associated with the games - or elaborate on his role in persuading congressional appropriators and cri- tics to give the games more money. In the 2004 book he wrote about the games, “Turnaround,” Romney outlined how he revamped the Salt Lake Olympic Committee’s lobbying operations in Washington. He directed plans to hire experienced transportation lobby- ists and wooed congressional leaders. In one instance, Rom- ney highlights how he made arrangements for different states to send experienced bus drivers to Utah. He helped arrange to pay them union wages, he wrote in the book - and he persuaded the federal government to pick up the tab. Thus, history shows us that the U.S. taxpayers actually “saved” the Olympics of 2002, and Willard Mitt Romney was merely that catalyst who shoveled the money from one pot to another. Where, oh where was his principle of smaller, limited federal government involvement in the affairs of the country? Apparently the Etch-a- Sketch erased all those Olympic memories. Previous question: What did Clark Kent’s adoptive mother, Martha, use to make his Superman costume? Answer: Martha fashioned the outfit from the swaddling clothes that protected the baby on his rocket journey from Krypton to Earth. Question: What basketball great has been selected for more NBA All-Star teams than any other player in the history of the league? Hang up your cell phone and just drive! Peace! (Bud Christian, of Sterling, is the author of numerous books on the English language and trivia. E-mail comments or questions to budnjoyce1@msn. com.)
