Members of Obama’s administration head to hard-hit auto states

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Members of President Barack Obama’s administration are crisscrossing four Midwestern states badly hurt by the auto industry’s woes.
   
Officials in those states - Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin - are lining up to ask for a better deal when it comes to getting funds from the federal recovery act. At stake is $87 billion in discretionary federal recovery dollars being handed out.
   
Michigan has the nation’s highest unemployment rate. Ohio and Indiana are in the top 10. But the formulas used by the recovery act usually don’t consider unemployment and layoffs, so these states aren’t getting anything extra for being hard-hit.
   
Some critics are calling the four-day tour a feel-good attempt by the White House.
   
A spokeswoman for Vice President Joe Biden, who’s overseeing the recovery efforts, is defending the tour, saying the amount each state gets in both formula and discretionary funds is changing day by day.