Critics: Romney didn’t engineer Olympics turnaround by himself (Salt Lake Trib)

By Thomas Burr | The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published Aug 04 2012 08:57 pm • Last Updated Aug 04 2012 11:52 pm

Washington • While Mitt Romney and allies continue to hammer President Barack Obama over his "you didn’t build that" comment, critics say one of the Republican presidential candidate’s most notable achievements — saving the Salt Lake City Olympics — was built on the back of the federal government.

Romney is credited with rescuing the scandal-draped 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City but he couldn’t have pulled the event out of the red ink — or pulled it off, period — without a significant multimillion-dollar investment from the federal government, they charge ...

But critics note that while Romney likes to take credit for turning around the 2002 Winter Olympics, which had been savaged by an international bribery scandal, the federal government pumped more than $340 million into Utah, funding about 18 percent of the Games’ overall cost. If money for rebuilding Interstate 15 in Utah and adding light rail are included, the federal total rounds up to $1.3 billion ...

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/faith/54609098-90/build-romney-didn-government.html.csp