“What they are looking for are projects that are called ‘shovel ready’ or projects that will put people back to work quickly or create jobs,” Ellsworth said. “For towns this size, you all will be competing with other towns the same size.”

Beck said the town is looking for additional funding for a sewer project.

“We’ll face it,” Beck said. “We want to bring as much home as we can.”

Even though the stimulus will spend money at a high rate, it stings for Ellsworth who has been against deficit spending since winning election in 2006.

“To say that we are going to spend $787 billion of what we don’t have makes you want to throw up,” Ellsworth said. “But when you sit there and listen to these record layoffs, the worst since the Great Depression, it may not be the way I would have wrote the bill.”

But it had to be done. One questioner asked about the bailout of the big three U.S. automakers and asked why the government should dump money into failing and irresponsible companies.

Ellsworth said although there is not a major big three plant in the eighth district, helping U.S. automakers helps Toyota, who has a plant in Gibson County.

“They’re doing everything short of laying people off,” Ellsworth said. “The suppliers that supply Toyota are the same suppliers for them.”

Ellsworth said after the meeting the mood of the country has really changed from last year’s Open Door listening tour, even from last November’s election.

“We really have (noticed a mood swing,) Ellsworth said. “This comes on the heels of the stimulus bill and people are frustrated, concerned. There’s a lot of blame going around. There’s a lot of confusion.

“They are worried and this is real,” Ellsworth said.

Up next for Ellsworth is work on the a new housing relief package and a possible second loan to automakers.

“Anything else on financial institutions,” Ellsworth said. “Combine that with everything else. We can’t stop and say we are going to work on the stimulus and the economy. We have troops over in Iraq and Afghanistan and we are not going to forget about them either.”