Unbelievable. With one paragraph, a President's visit is undermined.

Today at a factory in Ohio, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland joined President Obama in celebrating the fruits of the federal stimulus - an expansion of a manufacturing plant in Youngstown.

The president then discussed the $19 million in stimulus money that is going to the V&M expansion, saying “as a result of this investment,” the $650 million project is moving ahead.

Without the stimulus package, “the steady progress we’re beginning to see across America would not exist and neither would the plant that you’re about to build,” Obama said.

That's all well and good, except for one extremely massive detail.

The factory expansion would have happened without the massive donation of taxpayer dollars.

Joel Mastervich, V&M’s president and chief operating officer, said the stimulus money “helped propel the project forward.” But he added that “the project would have proceeded” without the money.

Also, Philippe Crouzet, chairman of the management board of Vallourec, V&M’s Paris-based parent company, said: “You don’t make such a big decision based on just a [government] subsidy.”

Oops.

In other words, Americans gave away $19 million to a French-owned company in exchange for absolutely nothing at all. They were going to expand their factory anyway.

As I detailed this afternoon, the entire premise of the President celebrating the stimulus in Youngstown was so bogus as to be insulting.

Americans are sick of throwing their cash down the government toilet.

And Democrats will feel it in November.