State Auditor Susan Montee joined about two dozen local labor leaders at the Old Courthouse this morning to lay out what they see as a contrast between the plight of Missouri’s working families suffering under the economic downturn, and the wealthy sharing dinner this evening at a fundraiser for Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

“He’s here to reassure the wealthy individuals and the business groups that he is going to continue the policies of the Bush administration,” said Montee in a telephone interview afterwards.

Meanwhile, she said, the St. Louis area is losing most of its workforce at the Chrysler plant and is worried over possible job losses from of the sale of Anheuser-Busch breweries to InBev.

Montee also noted that Missouri’s unemployment rate is currently at 6 percent, which is higher than the federal rate of 5.5 percent.

All of those troubles, she said, are tied to the policies of the Bush administration.

Montee’s line echoed that delivered Monday afternoon by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., a major booster of the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Sen. Barack Obama.

McCaskill said that Americans “feel the tremors of our economic underpinnings coming lose.”

She linked the region’s job losses and the A-B sale to the weakness of the U.S. dollar overseas. “Even our national security is dependent on our economic security,” McCaskill said.

McCaskill said her message to Missouri voters, and others around the country was that they should expect to see more of the same under McCain.

She called his economic proposals “pie in the sky, a fantasy.”

“He says we’re going to cut spending…but he cannot identify a single government program that he would cut,” she added.