President Obama and the Very Hungry Caterpillar

"Across the country, states need help and under my plan help is what they will get," President Obama said this morning in Springfield, Virginia. "My plan contains the largest investment increase in our nation’s infrastructure since President Eisenhower created the National Highway system half a century ago. We’ll invest more than a 100 billion dollars in creating nearly 400,000 jobs, rebuilding our roads, our railways, our dangerously deficient dams, bridges and levees."

The President was speaking at a highway construction site on Fairfax County Parkway, standing with his new Democratic National Committee chair, vice presidential also-ran and Commonwealth of Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.

"Here in Virginia my plan will create or save more than 100,000 jobs doing work at sites just like this one," the president said. "Where we’re standing that could mean hundreds of construction jobs. And the benefits of jobs we create directly will multiply across the economy. For example, this kind of infrastructure project requires heavy equipment.

"Caterpillar," the president continued, "which manufactures machines used in this project has announced some 20,000 layoffs in the last few weeks. Today the chairman and CEO of Caterpillar said that if the American Recovery and Reinvestment plan passes, his company would be able to rehire some of those employees."

The President also noted that tomorrow he was planning to visit Peoria, Illinois, where he will visit Caterpillar and its workers. Caterpillar is the world’s largest manufacturer of bulldozers and excavators. The chairman and CEO of Caterpillar, Inc., Jim Owens, has said that this quarter the company might post its first lost in 16 years. At the end of January, the company announced job cuts including 12,000 employees and 8,000 contractors, as well as "permanent layoffs" for 2,100 factory workers in Illinois.

Owens — whom last week the president appointed to his Economic Recovery Advisory Board — has not made such a declaration publicly, although the Peoria Journal Star reports that Owens plans to pledge to the president tomorrow that Caterpillar "will begin recalling laid off employees if an acceptable economic stimulus package is approved and enacted quickly, the Journal Star has learned."

Reported the newspaper:  "Owens, who will fly into Peoria on Air Force One with the president on Thursday afternoon, will encourage passage of a ‘significant stimulus package’ in the United States and will offer his and Caterpillar’s encouragement for other stimulus packages being considered around the world, said a source familiar with the plans for Obama’s visit to Peoria on Thursday. Owens, the source said, in his discussions with Obama and his public comments during the visit, will ‘emphasize that these economic stimulus packages are a critical step toward global economic recovery.

Caterpillar: "Buy American" Provisions in Stimulus Are "Snake Oil"

Of some note: Caterpillar has also cautioned against the stimulus bill containing the "Buy American" provisions that many in the business community consider sheer protectionism. Caterpillar spokesman Jim Dugan said those provisions were a sham.

"Like snake oil, it sounds great but would make the economy sicker," Dugan said. 

The company also has been pushing long and hard for the free trade deal with Colombia that House Democrats have stalled, citing labor concerns.

Last Fall, Caterpillar’s director of government affairs, Bill Lane, told Dow Jones News Service that "by inaction, the U.S. Congress is telling our customers in Colombia ’we would prefer you to buy Canadian goods than American goods.’"

President Obama seems to share the view of the House Democrats, saying in the presidential debate at Hofstra University that "the history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis and there have not been prosecutions," a statement the Washington Post fact-checker gave two Pinnochios since the President "failed to note that the murder rate has dropped significantly over the last few years. While the vast majority of the murders have gone uninvestigated, it is untrue to say that ‘there have not been prosecutions.’ The prosecution rate may still be unacceptably low, but it has risen over the last two years, thanks in part to measures taken by the Uribe government under pressure from the United States."

- jpt