No matter what your politics, we all want to see this country's economy grow stronger, right?

So no one should criticize the president's recently completed "Made in America Week" that served as a show and tell for his efforts to, well, make it all great again.

Especially when Made in Aurora was a big part of that Made in America showcase.

The good news is that one of the exhibits to get national attention at the White House during the president's big expo on the White House lawn was the 966M wheel loader, made by Caterpillar right here in our community.

In case you aren't familiar with the wheel loader, it is used to transport heavy materials —gravel, dirt, asphalt, minerals — on a job site or to load it into trucks or hoppers. According to Caterpillar, the 966M is mostly used in landscaping, agricultural construction, waste management, forestry and mining.

The only problem is, this wheel loader was the only exhibit to hail from Illinois. Which is probably appropriate seeing as how manufacturing is being pummeled in this state, not just because of technology and globalization but because residents and businesses seem to be fleeing to other parts of the country as we struggle with our Springfield dysfunction.

Even more ironic: The Aurora manufacturing plant — OK, technically Montgomery — that makes the wheel loader will be shuttered by the end of 2018, with 800 employees getting the pink slip as production is moving to Arkansas and downstate Decatur.

Of course Cat, the largest manufacturer of earth moving equipment, is a whole lot more than the Fox Valley, operating in 19 states with about 70 facilities and a workforce of 48,500. And everyone worldwide knows and loves the big yellow triangle that has come to symbolize America's working class might.

Our recent presidents were especially enamored with the company's big machines. Remember when George W. Bush visited the Montgomery plant in 2005 to sign a $287 billion transportation bill? Among those at this grand hoopla was Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, along with Illinois politician Barack Obama and a few thousand employees from the local Cat plant.

Times have indeed changed. Hastert is now in a halfway house, finishing up a 13-month prison sentence. Obama has come and gone as a two-term leader of the free world; with a Presidential Library in the works; and layoffs, including the 800 just announced in March, will leave only a fraction of Aurora-area employees, mostly in engineering and support, that were on hand to celebrate during those heady pre-recession times.

It's not difficult to see why Cat was chosen by the White House to be on display. Its products are big, bold and beautiful. And its execs have promised to "to pull out all the stops" to help the Trump administration reform — in other words, cut — those corporate taxes that they believe have moved jobs overseas.

There's more irony in the fact the Trump and family businesses often use workers and products from low-paying countries. And Cat, in addition to laying off thousands of U.S. workers the last couple of years, is under investigation over alleged tax dodging — it's parts-business is owned by a Swiss subsidiary.

So why this particular piece of equipment from this particular plant, I asked Caterpillar folks.

Turns out Cat had more than 300 machines to choose from for this expo, but "once we understood the time frame and size and logistical limitations in bringing a machine to the White House," the company said in an email response, "the wheel loader seemed the best fit." Not only did it "meet the White House criteria," it made "our entire workforce proud."

Cat officials didn't seem all that concerned about representing our beleaguered state with a product manufactured in a soon-to-be shuttered plant. "The 966M is an excellent representation of the best in class machines Caterpillar makes," the email went on to state, "and we were proud to demonstrate the outstanding work of our Aurora employees."

So there you go, Aurora employees. Thank you very much for a job well done. We hope you enjoyed your moment in the national spotlight. And if you can't make that move to Decatur or Arkansas, well, best of luck in the unemployment line.