KASIE HUNT SALT LAKE CITY — The Associated Press Published Saturday, Feb. 18, 2012 8:07PM EST Last updated Saturday, Feb. 18, 2012 10:39PM EST

Mitt Romney returned to Salt Lake City on Saturday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 2002 Winter Games he helped lead, but the GOP presidential candidate has come under attack for urging the federal government to provide big bucks for Olympic expenses.

So instead of touting his role as savior in the wake of a bribery scandal, as he usually does, Romney told finger-wagging stories about cutting the budget for decorating the city and for building the giant cauldron that held the Olympic flame.

“We had to cut back on spending, as you probably know,” Romney told the crowd gathered at the EnergySolutions arena for a performance of Stars on Ice.

He walked in with figure skater and gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi, who offered the argument Romney usually makes on the campaign trail. Because of “the fire he lit from within, the games were a tremendous success,” she said, referring to the games' theme song, “Light the Fire Within.”

Romney was hired to lead the Salt Lake Olympic Committee after a bribery scandal threatened the games. The success of those Olympics, he says during the campaign, help make the case for his bid for the White House.

“I led an Olympics out of the shadows of scandal,” Romney told conservative activists this month, repeating a claim he has made dozens of times on the campaign trail.

His time running the games has proved a boon in other ways. Ahead of his remarks, Romney held a high-dollar fundraiser in Salt Lake with many of the business and community leaders he worked with at the Olympics.

The fundraiser was hosted by Fraser Bullock, who helped him run the Salt Lake Games. Bullock is also major donor to an super PAC that is supporting Romney's bid. Several people listed as associated with the group, Restore Our Future, were on a list of special guests for Saturday night's ice skating ceremonies.

In brief remarks to Olympic staff and volunteers and again at the skating event Saturday night, Romney said he cut millions from the budget to decorate the city and argued some of the venues built in Salt Lake cost much less than they had in other cities that had hosted winter games.

Romney said he cut the cauldron's budget back to $500,000 and eventually secured an $8 million donation to pay for the enormous, clear glass structure where the Olympic flame burned during the 2002 games.

Romney's opponents are attacking his record at the games, with both Democrats and GOP presidential rival Rick Santorum criticizing Romney for helping to secure millions in federal earmarks that helped cover Olympic costs.

“One of the things he talks about most is how he heroically showed up on the scene and bailed out and resolved the problems of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games,” Santorum said during a campaign stop in Columbus, Ohio. “He heroically bailed out the Salt Lake City Olympic Games by heroically going to Congress and asking them for tens of millions of dollars to bail out the Salt Lake games — in an earmark.”

Democrats made those claims, too, in a web video released Friday. They highlighted comments from Arizona Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee who's a longtime critic of federal support for the Olympics and other international sporting events.

McCain called the Olympics “an incredible pork-barrel project for Salt Lake City and its environs.”

Romney's campaign says most of the money went to provide security in the wake of Sept. 11. The games were held about five months after the terrorist attacks and were the first major international event since the al-Qaida strikes.

See original here:
Mitt Romney cites Olympics success, rivals are leery