The White House, Glenn Beck, and The Vancouver Olympics
More free promotion for our Vancouver games (that is drawing attention the financial mismanagement that we are just months away from being saddled with) as the White House website decides it should correct a HUGE error:
From the White House website - ‘A partisan attack to boost ratings’ – in response to Glenn Beck referring to the Vancouver Olympics in the past tense.
They forgot to mention that Vancouver has actually lost more than a billion so far, and will probably lose closer to a $4 billion, which is really chump change to the Barrack O’Carter administration. And peanuts compared to what Chicago would have inflicted on its residents.
As much as I like what Glenn is doing, he really needs a lesson on the history of the Canadian Olympic hosting successes and failures. (Montreal is a far better example of what Chicago’s corruption would have led to.)
Glenn Beck’s response on his show:
GLENN: But apparently nobody’s disagreeing that Calgary hemorrhaged money because they didn’t respond to, you know, the hemorrhaging money of I mean, you could easily see how that was a mistake. I, you know, said Vancouver instead of Calgary. I was just in Washington State. I know that the Olympics happened up there, you know, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Isn’t this kind of a strange thing to attack? I mean, I’m talking about the Olympics losing billions of dollars. I’m talking about corruption, and they are calling me out on the order of Olympic cities? I mean, this is like is this trivial pursuit? Because I mean, it’s like we’re doing Olympic trivia or something like that. I’m not sure who won the bronze medal for speed skating in Calgary that year but I guess the White House is going to, you know I’ll just have to go to the White House for that kind of information because they will have that, I’m sure.
PAT: You said they were losing a fortune. And they haven’t even had the games there.
GLENN: All right. Well, you asked for it. So well, you didn’t. But at least the White House asked for the details on the Vancouver games. So let’s give you the details on the Vancouver games, which again haven’t happened yet. The Vancouver Olympics budgeted $175 million for security. According to the Vancouver Sun, that number may be $800 million higher. British Columbia’s auditor general reported that British Columbia, quote, has not fully disclosed the risks associated with the cost and revenue projections, end quote. He says they didn’t include, quote, what he and two previous auditors believe should be counted as Olympic related costs. The billion dollar sea to sky highway improvements, the billion dollar trade and convention center and the $2 billion Canada line. That’s close to $4 billion that they just kind of shuffled off onto other books. Plus the $600 million the government admits to.
PAT: Okay, but those numbers don’t …
GLENN: Hold on just a second. I’m not entirely done here. Also missing from the budget, the $300 million Olympic bonus that unionized government employees got for signing a four year contract that ends after the games. I just, I just love these unions. By the way, that contract ends right after the election, too. Transportation to the event, which is another unaccounted for $250 million, Canadians are also on the hook for the Olympic village for a billion dollars. Its original budget was less than $200 million. They thought they could make the money back by selling everything as condos after the games. Yeah, guess how well those condo sales strategies are working out for them. Just interest on the money for all the unsold units could cost Canada $48 million. Every single year. So far we’re up to over $6 billion in unaccounted for costs. The original budget was $1 1/2 billion. Also remember it doesn’t include everything. There’s still almost a year before the games actually start, but, you know, don’t worry. They planned for this, you know. They have a contingency fund. $66.8 million. Unfortunately they’ve already spent 98% of that money.
Glenn: Calgary Winter Olympics made money. You can thank an organizing committee that was headed up by oilman Frank King. Vancouver’s is headed up by the usual tax and spend political hack crowd.
That’s the real story.
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:53 am
Salt lake was also a money maker. they were run by Mitt Romney so it goes to show that if you want your Olympics well-run, call a conservative.
October 3rd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
not one winter olympics has ever lost money glenn beck is my hero sort of but he got to study a bit on that. only summer olympics loses money that is why we didn’t bid on it. in vancouver.