Massive Government Stimulus Has Not Helped CAT as Promised (Rep. Aaron Schock)

The layoffs announced by Caterpillar today proves the promises that CAT would not proceed with planned layoffs and rehire workers if the so-called economic stimulus plan passed were inaccurate.

Congress did pass the stimulus bill and the President got everything he wanted from Congress. Yet, these additional layoffs confirm CAT workers were misused by the Administration as justification for the stimulus bill.

These layoffs are a result of the on-going recession. Sadly, the false hopes that passage of the stimulus bill would enable them to keep their jobs are now a horrible letdown. I supported legislation that would have created twice the jobs at half the price, and included more funding for infrastructure that would have increased the demand for Caterpillar machinery.

In my floor speech against passage of the flawed stimulus bill, I said “this bill is too big to get it wrong,” but these layoffs are another sign that they did get this bill wrong. As a result, we have little increased infrastructure construction, more layoffs, dashed hopes, massive wasteful spending and vastly increased debt.

It is no wonder not one Caterpillar employee came to me after the President’s speech in Peoria and asked me to support this bill.

Cross-post from Redstate.com.