Unions saved the Olympics while Romney spent $1.3B federal bailout

You'll be hearing a lot more about the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics so long as Mitt Romney is running for president. Thanks to We Party Patriots for debunking the myth that Romney "saved" the games when he came in as CEO. A recent blog post notes "the story of who really broke their back to get the games going, and who kept the lights on for the world to watch, needs to be told." Here it is:

Utah’s I-15, a 17-mile highway bisecting the Salt Lake Valley that was impossibly completed in time for the 2002 Olympics by, you guessed it, union labor under a Project Labor Agreement just like the ones Romney assailed in front of the Associated Builders and Contractors yesterday. Not only did this PLA guarantee timely results, it ensured that the largest highway project Utah had ever tackled would benefit residents by hiring locally...

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) estimated that the reconstruction of I-15 could not be completed until after the Olympics in 2002 and probably would not be done until 2004. Then Utah Governor Mike Leavitt later said, “I told [Tom Warne, Executive Director of UDOT], ‘Tom, we’ve got to find a way to do this faster. We cannot have this community torn up for nine years.’”…

Under design-build, construction could be scheduled to begin in early 1997. Contractors would be expected to work around the clock, six or seven days per week. There would be limits on how many lanes could be closed at any given time as well as how many interchanges could be closed...

In April of 2002, the I-15 reconstruction was declared the top civil engineering achievement of the year by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)...

There's more: The IBEW workers who kept the lights on during the equivalent of 10 Super Bowls every day for 10 days.
the electricians’ union, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 57, was brought on to run the electricity for the games as well:

PacifiCorp, through Utah Power, and Local 57 IBEW will be the electricity provider for the Winter Olympics....PacifiCorp and Local 57 will provide power and logistics for ten competition venues and four noncompetition venues, like the media center. So when the TV goes dark, you know we’ve got big trouble at PacifiCorp.

Over 7,000 press credentials will be issued for the 2002 Winter Olympics. And to try to put that into perspective for you, 500 press credentials are issued for a Super Bowl. And running the Olympics — and as my friends at the IBEW and Georgia Power that went through this in Atlanta — it’s similar to running ten Super Bowls every day for 17 days. Through our joint logistical committee, led by Blaine Newman, business manager of Local 57, we are working together.

Romney is also under fire for accepting $1.3 billion in taxpayer funding for the games. The Democrats have put out a video you can watch here.