Cabinet Officials Heading to Towns That Make Autos

FORT WAYNE, Ind., May 29 -- President Obama will send eight Cabinet secretaries and other senior officials into the industrial Midwest next week to fathom the depth of the region's economic crisis and explain to the fearful and jobless how the administration intends to reverse the worst recession in generations.

The visits will focus on cities and towns in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio that have suffered economically as a result of the faltering auto industry, large parts of which are receiving tens of billions of dollars in direct government aid and unprecedented presidential oversight. Although Obama has suggested that the national economy is showing the first signs of recovery, senior administration officials acknowledge the industrial Midwest may not yet have touched bottom.

Obama signed his $787 billion stimulus bill just over 100 days ago, and administration officials have organized a series of events, including next week's Midwest visits, to mark the occasion. In remarks earlier this week in Las Vegas, Obama said the spending has created or preserved nearly 150,000 jobs so far, a figure difficult to confirm independently.

But the unemployment rate in Michigan -- where Chrysler resides in bankruptcy and General Motors is expected to join it next week -- is the highest in the nation. Ohio and Indiana are suffering similarly. In his daily briefing Friday at the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said, "We can get in my Ford, and we can go to a lot of different communities in southeast Michigan and Ohio and Indiana and Wisconsin, and I can assure you there are real names and faces to people that have given -- have given a lot," referring to union members who agreed to concessions in talks with the automakers.

"Clearly, it is a region that has been severely hit," said Edward Montgomery, a former deputy labor secretary who is now Obama's director of recovery for auto communities and workers. "They're reeling from the economy, but the stimulus is having a positive impact."

Montgomery said Cabinet-rank officials -- the secretaries of energy, labor, education, housing and urban development, commerce, agriculture, transportation and the interior, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency administrator -- will visit factories, small businesses and town-hall forums to hear from people and "to send a message about the comprehensiveness of the approach" of the administration. He described it as "a series of short-term relief measures" that is "part of a long-term transformation of the economy."

Montgomery has been traveling the region for weeks. In Warren, Mich., he heard that the United Way is being swamped with calls from people asking for help paying for food. In Kokomo, Ind., parts suppliers for GM and Chrysler worry that they will never be paid. In Grand Rapids, Mich., city officials have pitched programs to transform auto parts makers into wind-turbine manufacturers.

"There's lots of ingenuity and resiliency in companies and communities," Montgomery said. "It's been hit hard, but there's hope."

But in Fort Wayne, where Energy Secretary Steven Chu is scheduled to visit next week, a nearby GM plant has reduced workers' hours. There is a feeling here, where the unemployment rate for a city of 250,000 people is about 11 percent, that Obama's stimulus spending is not working -- or at least not working fast enough.

"The auto industry needs a lot of help," said Mike Shanley, 40, as he pumped gas at a Marathon station on Jefferson Boulevard, the town's main drag. "I have a lot of neighbors who work for GM, and either people are laid off or they're worried they're going to be laid off."

Shanley, who sells candy and cigarettes to convenience stores, said he is skeptical that the government's steps, including spending billions of dollars in stimulus funds and bailing out Chrysler and GM, will improve the economy.

"It's just an economic cycle," he said. "People aren't buying. They're not spending. I don't know if it's something that one person can fix. It could take years for the stuff [Obama is] doing now to take effect."