Caterpillar Workers Oppose Stimulus, Despite Obama's Visit, Implausible Promises

The House just passed the stimulus package with no Republican support, and eight "no" votes from Democrats.

Rep. Aaron Schock, whose llinois district is home to Caterpillar, spoke on the floor about the president's speech to his constituents and their telling response. Caterpillar has been a central part of Obama's stimulus pitch the past couple of days, but the pitch has been bumbled, as the rest of the stimulus message has been. Obama claimed the Caterpillar CEO told him he'd be rehiring some of his 22,000 laid-off workers as soon as the stimulus bill was passed, but Owens later flatly contradicted the President's claim.

Schock's constituents were urged by the president himself to tell Schock to vote "yes," but he was not approached by one constituent, Caterpillar employee or otherwise, asking him to support the stimulus. Democrats can pass this monstrosity because they control both houses, but they should never get away with painting criticism of it as unreasonable or purely partisan. Criticism comes from every quarter- even from laid-off workers who are subject to an onslaught of the president's patented Promises of an Implausible Nature and Grandiloquence of Economic Gloom:

I found it very interesting that after the president finished his speech and I stayed around, not one employee at that facility approached me and asked me to vote for this bill. In fact, I have received over 1,400 phone calls, e-mails, and letters from Caterpillar employees alone asking me to oppose this legislation

Video is here:

Update: When asked about Schock's floor speech and "no" vote, the White House responds by calling him a political hack for for voting in line with both his principles and his constituents.

Asked by ABC News about Schock's comments and the lack of constituents apparently lobbying him, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs at today's briefing said "if the congressman goes back and evaluates the plan, lobbying or not, I think he'll see that it saves or creates millions of jobs, puts people back to work,...would put money directly into employees at Caterpillar's pockets, as well as people throughout his district."

Gibbs added, "I think, if the congressman goes and looks at the bill through an economic lens, not just one -- not just through a political one, I think he'll see benefits not just for his district and his state, but for the entire country."

What Gibbs ignores is that Schock's anecdote is a reflection of just how deep the skepticism of the stimulus runs among regular Americans who have no political motivations. It's not something Obama's team wants to admit because it would require conceding that the fault lies almost entirely with him for losing control of the process and message. He was a president with a 70-percent approval rating tasked with getting a Democratic-controlled Congress to spend a bunch of money without vociferous objection from utterly politically neutered Republicans. He failed, and in doing so, he "brought publicity to the skunk."

The people of Peoria are not jockeying for reelection or fund raising off of their opposition. They've got the extremely popular president of the United States standing right in front of them, promising that their jobs will come back and money will be put in their pockets if they'll just tell Rep. Aaron Schock to vote "yes" on one bill.