Veteran Wisconsin Rep. Tom Petri has an unusual qualm with the economic booster shot due for House consideration on Wednesday.

He is in the small minority of House Republicans — perhaps a caucus of one — who think the package spends too little on infrastructure projects.

He is also among a clutch of about a dozen Republican moderates heading down Pennsylvania Avenue Tuesday to meet with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a former Illinois congressman and President Obama’s informal top emissary to House Republicans.

Petri’s vote is still in play.

“I’m trying to get a better sense of how this all fits into the greater scheme of things,” Petri said, adding that he wants an explanation of the interplay between the stimulus and other financial recovery programs. “I’m still basically looking at it.”

Petri’s vote has outsized value to Obama, a new president who campaigned on his ability to bridge partisan divides and unify the country. The stimulus bill is the first big test of Obama’s capacity to fulfill the campaign-trail promise to forge bipartisan coalitions.

House Republicans predict there will be few defections to the Democratic side for a stimulus bill that, according to the 10-year projection of the Congressional Budget Office, would spend $606 billion and net $212 billion in tax cuts.

If there are any green lights next to Republican names on the House scoreboard on Wednesday, one of those markers of a “yes” vote could flash up beside “Petri.”

Petri says he hears the argument fellow Republicans make that much of the planned spending will not provide any immediate stimulus. He says he has little confidence that the bill will solve the nation’s problems. He also questions whether the wisest move is to inject spending into existing programs that are “good, bad and indifferent.”

But he also believes the government should be providing more aid to states to cover programs as demand for assistance rises in a bad economy.

First elected in 1979 in an east-central Wisconsin district that now runs from Sheboygan in the east past Marquette in the west and from the Waukesha County line in the south to north of Oshkosh, Petri has seen his share of national economic swings.

The current downturn is pinching the outboard motor makers at Brunswick’s Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac and the domestic “severe duty” truck operation at Oshkosh Corporation, Petri said.

The military side of Oshkosh’s business is doing well, Petri said, but orders for civilian vehicles, like fire trucks and cement mixers, has stagnated.