Posted on 02/03/2008 10:04:54 AM PST by BurbankKarl
On Sept. 19, 2000, John McCain rose in the Senate to rail against what he called the "staggering" sums that the federal government planned to spend to help Salt Lake City stage the 2002 Winter Olympics.
"The American taxpayer is being shaken down to the tune of nearly a billion and a half dollars," McCain said.
The Arizona Republican vowed to "do everything in my power" to delay or kill "this pork-barrel spending" and to end the "fiscal abuse" related to the Olympics. "This is preposterous and it must stop," he said.
Mitt Romney, who headed the Olympics, counseled calm when reporters from Utah's Deseret Morning News reached him in Sydney, Australia. Romney challenged McCain's arithmetic, arguing that taxpayers would provide only $250 million. In any case, he asserted that he already had obtained backing in Congress.
"I'm expecting the funding we need to host the Games," he said. "I'm quite confident."
The clash over Olympics spending, which dragged on for two years, helps explain some of the acrimony that now characterizes the race between the two front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination. The dispute provided an early preview of the fissures that still divide McCain and Romney as they face what may be decisive contests Tuesday.
"It may be a source of the sniping between the two," said Quin Monson, assistant director of the Center for Elections and Democracy at Romney's alma mater, Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Kelly Patterson, the center's director, agreed: "People have long memories in politics."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Ping.
Isn’t that something. I have said before, if people on this forum had any idea the actions of some of those people looking on in approval, they would cringe. I’d wager that Ted is more than likely tame when compared to some of the others.
Slick Willard boasts great financial acumen in saving the Utah Olympic Games.
In point of fact he arranged a federal bailout. Wow! Impressive.
That’s why there’s no Department of Education, right?
LATIMES, who cares?
Folks can say whatever they want to say about McCain, and a lot of it is true, but the guy has always been against big spending, with the exception of military spending.
****
In McCain’s own words, squidly!
McCain Can’t Be President
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/908572/mccain_cant_be_president/
Don’t Ask McCain
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1073039/dont_ask_mccain/
You and every homey Would rather have Mitt Romney The truth is now so plain Your candidate's McCain He'll win fans of Bobby Vinton Lose race to Rodham Klinton
“I realize that its difficult to say one nice thing on this board about John McCain, but he does have a redeeming quality or two.”
John exhales carbon dioxide and that’s good for plants and trees. So he’s got that goin’ for him.
The numbers are 43.0% for JohnnyMac to 24.3% for RomneyHack.
With three moderate-liberal-Rino choices left, whats a conservative to do?
GO NOBODY!
“The American public gets to bail out everything! It doesn’t even have to be a home grown disaster. Tsunami relief is bad enough, and we’ve bailed out Florida for one hurricane after another. Funny, I don’t remember his speaking out on the shake down of the American public to send aid to Katrina victims. He must have missed that on the news...”
Maybe he was trolling with John Kerry looking for a younger, richer wife.
oh please...the LA Olympics made a boatload of cash.
How much will he spend on millions of more illegals coming into the country under his watch?
McCain was just pissed because that money wasn’t being spent in his state.
Burma Shave
Almost said OPM. Now that's another story for another day about Utah druggies.
But obviously, the trouble was big enough that the Olympic Committee and their Utah hosts felt they needed a high-powered "turnaround artist" to fix the mess. That's why they hired Romney, whom some considered to be the top business consultant in the USA.
After they hired him, the Olympics went off without a hitch. Therefore he gets the lion's share of the credit. What's hard to understand about this story?
(And by the way, stockmarket guru Jim Cramer doesn't call Romney merely the best "business consultant." He says Romney is probably the best "businessman" in the USA. Works for me.)
Not true...His Amnesty bill calls for tons of federal government spending..he brands himself as a so called tight spender when once again is not true...he voted for many spending bills for his buddy Kennedy, Biden, etc..Reason he voted against tax cuts is because he wanted more money to go through his and fellow washinton buddie grubbie hands in Washington..no other reason.
Since you gave me an slight opening, I must extend my remarks a bit.
With all the attacks on McCain -— most of that criticism warranted and justified -— FReepers are overlooking the obvious liberalism of Romney. Its amazing the choices some so-called conservatives will make in the name of political expediency. That drops them in line with Romney’s own efforts at the political shell game. And here I thought Giuliani was the biggest opportunist of recent vintage. Rooty can’t match Myth in that regard.
And BTW, the Olympics was a failure for local businesses like mine which spent over twenty thousand on promotions that promised huge returns. S**t returns is what happened.
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