Tribune Calculates 2016 Taxpayer Bite – $2 Billion And Counting…
Mayor Richard Daley likes to say his dream of bringing the Olympics to Chicago won’t be a drain on taxpayers’ wallets and pocketbooks.
“Tax money isn’t paying for it. There’s no tax money whatsoever,” Daley said earlier this year. “We are very strong in that position … in the regard to having that be sponsored by the private sector and others.”
The 2016 Olympic bid committee states that the $4.8 billion estimated cost would be paid for with contributions from wealthy donors, corporate sponsorships, television rights and ticket sales to ceremonies and sporting events.
But the reality is more complicated than that. Hundreds of millions of dollars in local, state and federal tax money already is committed, from acquiring land for the proposed Olympic Village to helping construct sporting competition venues.
Adding up the list of 2016-related expenses and we got to $2 billion plus! It’s much higher because two large categories of expenses were “unknown” or “undetermined.” See the Tribune’s table of citizen expenses…
Every city in the United State that has hosted the Olympics has made a profit. Prove me otherwise. You people are so shortsided and want only what is best for you at the moment for the moment. Yes, the economy sucks, won’t the Olympics bring jobs to the city? Money? Tourists? Prove me otherwise. Healthcare, honestly, I’m sick of hearing about it so I watch the Cubs & Bears to take my mind off of it. Wouldn’t the Olympics take our minds off of all the crap going on and we would work together to show how proud we are of our city? Grow a pair, take a chance people. Have some pride in Chicago rather than whining and moaning about things you have no idea what will be . I lived in Atlanta from ’80 to ’01 and the Olympics did wonders for the city, my family and me. Atlant was a toilet, now it has one of the highest concentrations of fortune 500 comapanies and areas you would not have been caught dead I now can’t afford. You have no idea of the positive impact the Olympics would have on Chicago any city and for that matter all of America.
Apparently the earlier respondent hasn’t been reading the tons of information and list of books available on this website or in the various forms of media in Chicago. He apparently has his head stuck up a television screen tuned to ESPN anxiously awaiting the broadcast of the Vancouver winter Olympics.
The jobs would be short term, many low paying, The big bucks would go into already bulging pockets and if you read the recent articles in Tribune and The Reader about the lack of a sustained tourist bump you’ll see this proposed 2016 undertaking is not the panacea the Mayor and pals will have you believe.
Mr. You A Suck would do well to get a library card and use it.