GOP: 'We Built This!' live from government funded convention center

By Paddy Ryan

This Tuesday, Republicans are hosting their “We Built This” night, live from the Tampa Bay Times Forum arena. Tuesday night's theme, and the list of speakers, will be used to celebrate the American entrepreneurial spirit and to attack the President's comments which were made in July, and have since been taken way out-of-context.

Government built 62 % of this!

Kelly Ayotte, John Kasich, and Bob McDonnell will bash the President's comments, and describe how business is successful without any government help whatsoever. These GOP speakers will proudly take the stage at the Tampa Bay Times Forum arena, declaring to the world that government isn't responsible for the success of the private sector.

There's one problem though. The Tampa Bay Times Forum arena wouldn't have been built without government help. The arena was funded and built primarily with government money. In fact, 62 percent of the building project was financed with government money.

"The Tampa Bay Times Forum arena, which houses the Tampa Bay Lightning, was built in 1996 as the 'Ice Palace' with 62% government funds. The total budget for the project was $139 million, of which public money accounted for $86 million and team money accounted for $53 million."

Maybe the GOP should think about renaming Tuesday's session, the “we only built 38 percent of this” night.