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Mitt Romney has been attacking Rick Santorum for growing the government for weeks, but in 2002, back when Santorum was in Congress making those earmarks, Romney was bragging how good he was at securing them.
"I am big believer in getting money where the money is, and the money's in Washington," Romney said in 2002 during a PowerPoint presentation when he was running to be Massachusetts's governor, ABC News' Jonathan Karl reports. Then, as now, he was promising to grow the economy. But back then, he thought the way to do it was not by cutting federal spending.
"I want to go after every grant, every project, every department in Washington to assure that we are taking advantage of economic development opportunities," Romney told the New Bedford Industrial Foundation on October 16, 2002. He boasted that he got "over $410 million from the federal government for the Olympic games" (the Salt Lake Tribune reports that if you include indirect costs, it was $1.3 billion -- Romney was underselling his accomplishments). Romney's spokesman told ABC that the comparison isn't really fair, since "Every state budget in the country is dependent on federal funding, and every governor in the country makes requests for funding, but governors do not get to decide how Congress appropriates money," Andrea Saul said.