Romney, '06: "I’d be embarrassed if I didn’t always ask for federal money whenever I got the chance"

[highplainsdem]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romneys-work-on-olympics-mass-projects-reveals-a-complex-history-with-earmarks/2012/02/15/gIQAHJ72HR_story.html

By Rosalind S. Helderman, Thursday, February 16, 12:27 PM

DETROIT — Mitt Romney is escalating his attacks on GOP presidential rival Rick Santorum as a Washington insider who sought more than $1 billion for wasteful projects during his time in the Senate.

But Romney has a complicated relationship with federal funding. As the head of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, he led an aggressive effort to win hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid for the struggling Winter Games. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney requested millions in federal earmarks for state transportation projects. He once boasted about his prowess at winning taxpayer money.

“I’d be embarrassed if I didn’t always ask for federal money whenever I got the chance,” Romney joked in 2006, after meeting with Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, both Massachusetts Democrats, to seek federal help for a safety review of Boston’s long-troubled $22 billion Big Dig tunnel project.

Romney’s stand on federal assistance is drawing new attention ahead of a Feb. 28 Republican primary in Michigan, where his opposition to a federal bailout of the automobile industry and his criticism of Santorum’s earmarks are a crux of his argument.

-snip-

[elleng]

1. As a successful businessman, he's rational;

as a candidate, not so much.