Santorum Campaign Press Release - "I'd Be Embarrassed If I Didn't Always Ask for Federal Money Whenever I Got the Chance" - Mitt Romney

Verona, PA - Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has a short memory on his past support for federal appropriations.

Hogan Gidley, National Communications Director, said: "Does the forefather of Obamacare, advocate of the Wall Street Bailouts, and proponent of job-killing climate change regulations really want to try and lecture anyone about earmarks?

Rick Santorum has always given great credit to Governor Romney for his work at the 2002 Olympic Games and for advocating for federal funding for his constituents. It's just confusing as to why Governor Romney would attack Rick Santorum for doing his constitutionally obligated job on behalf of the people of Pennsylvania, just as Governor Romney once did for the people of Massachusetts and as a private citizen while running the Olympics. Governor Romney knows that Rick Santorum supported a moratorium on earmarks - but I guess if I had to defend the proliferation of spending Governor Romney advocated through bailouts and freedom-killing government run healthcare, I'd try and distract people too."

As Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney called on his state's congressional delegation to continue throwing good money after bad at the boondoggle "Big Dig" in Boston. Governor Romney had allotted $20 million from the Commonwealth's rainy-day fund, but grew so concerned that he reached out to the Massachusetts congressional delegation saying: "I'd be embarrassed if I didn't always ask for federal money whenever I get the chance." ("Big Dig Ready To Swallow More Taxpayer Money," Tovia Smith, NPR, July 21, 2006)

In his book Turnaround, Romney even devotes an entire chapter, entitled "Funds from the Feds," to talk about his advocacy for federal appropriations for the 2002 Olympic Games. Romney outlines in detail his lobbying of Senator Ted Stevens and Senator John McCain for federal funding for the Utah games. Romney would state that they "would need hundreds of millions of dollars worth of federal support from a long list of departments." (Mitt Romney, Turnaround, pg 227)

In fact, by the end of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games, the federal government had invested $342 million in aid to plan and stage the games. According to a Government Accountability Office report, this was nearly $50 million more in constant dollars than was spent for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games (Kirk Johnson, "In Olympics Success, Romney Found New Edge," New York Times, September 19, 2007).

Among the taxpayer funded expenditures were:

• $33,000 for an Olympic horse adoption program

• $55,000 for the Department of Justice to assess and resolve racial tension in Salt Lake City.

• More than half the federal dollars went to security, as well as shuttle buses, drug testing, and park-and-ride lots around Salt Lake City, UT.

So, in other words, his much vaunted "private sector" turnaround skills required federal intervention.