How Mitt saved the Olympics
By convincing the Bush Administration to bail out the Olympics with $1.5 billion picked from the pockets of US taxpayers: Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » How Mitt “saved” the Olympics…
When the dust settled, Mitt’s lobbying effort brought over $1.5 Billion to the SLC Games. In 2000 the GAO did an audit of US taxpayer support for Olympic Games in the country. Taxpayers spent $74,654,000 for the LA Games in 1984; and $608,512,000 for the 1996 in Atlanta. These were both summer Olympics and so you would expect them to cost more. But, the 2002 Winter Games in SLC blew the doors off the Treasury—taxpayers paid $1.5 Billion to bail out Mitt.
For the LA GAmes, taxpayers only paid for the Federal role during the games. In the Atlanta and SLC Games, taxpayers paid the most money to help the host city prepare their infrastructure. We spent $423,919,000 to help Atlanta and almost thrice that ($1.25 Billion) for Salt Lake City—and this is where the post-Olympics scandals can be found.
Look at the map on the top of this post. It is from the GAO report. It shows the 10 major road and highway projects funded by taxpayers for the Winter Games. Where these roads went, and who had control of the land was at the core of the grift. It is an old school scandal (remember Chinatown) and a scandal that can be mapped. The land around these taxpayer funded projects were owned by some people before the Olympics game to town. Then other folks magically got control of the land. And then the Federal Government built out the infrastructure to these parcels (roads, water sewer, etc.). Next, it could be developed. It could be rented and sold and resold. Businesses could start. New communities could start. Utah could have an economic boom—all because taxpayers bailed out the Olympics.
And yet, the folks who profited from this bailout—Mitt and all his pals—will pretend that they saved the f*cking Olympics and that they were brilliant Masters of the Universe who create wealth and profit. The fact that they owe everything to their ability to fleece US taxpayers will never be mentioned.
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Mitt for Grifter in Chief