Green Stimulus Dollars Creating Jobs...For Koreans

Unions may be unhappy with Obama, but they will march lockstep the polls this year and vote for four more years of failure.

(CBS News) Michigan once had the worst unemployment rate in the U.S. So when stimulus tax dollars poured into the state's electric car industry, residents had reason to celebrate. But what happened next has angered some of President Obama's most ardent supporters.

In 2010, Obama and Vice President Biden personally appeared to break ground at two Michigan plants. The plants were getting a combined $300 million under the stimulus program to build electric car batteries.


But as it turns out the companies getting all those American tax dollars are largely owned by Koreans. They bought a lot of Korean equipment and supplies. And they filled some of those sought-after jobs with Korean workers. That drew anger from local labor unions. They say pictures, taken inside the plants show Korean nationals doing hands-on work that should be done by Americans.

"I think there's a lot of anger out there, not to be confused with any sort of prejudice against anyone from another country," said Mark Mangione, who represents 1,000 labor union members in west Michigan. "This is American taxpayer dollars and there should be American jobs that are created with those American taxpayer dollars."