White House Will Keep Olympic Office Open

Meredith Jessup | October 07, 2009 3:20 PM

If you ever doubted conservatives who have warned "once you create a government program, you can never get rid of it," this is just one of many examples. Despite his failure in bringing the 2016 Olympic bid back to Chicago, President Obama's administration insists it still needs to maintain an office for the Olympics in the White House.

Politico reports:

The White House stressed that the office, officially called the White House Office of Olympic, Paralympic and Youth Sport, is permanent and has purposes other than helping U.S. cities bid on and host the Olympics.

“It was always our intention that this office would continue to exist regardless of the outcome of the 2016 bid,” said a White House official, explaining that the office will work to boost youth sports and will coordinate with the State Department and other agencies to facilitate U.S. athletes’ participation in the Olympics and Paralympics in other countries.

“We are currently working to support the participation in the London and Vancouver Games,” said the [unnamed] official, referring to the 2012 summer and 2010 winter games, respectively.

Hm, that's funny. When the office was created, they said it was just going to be around to assist in getting the Olympics for the U.S. Now we're "supporting the participation" of our athletes in other cities?