President Biden traveled to Wisconsin on Thursday to continue his legacy-burnishing tour and provide an assist to Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, announcing $7.3 billion in clean-energy financing for rural areas from signature legislation that passed in 2022.
Mr. Biden said it was the most significant investment of its kind since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
He contrasted it to former President Donald Trump’s pledge to build up the Foxconn facility in another part of Wisconsin — a project that sputtered out.
“You been there lately? He didn’t do a damn thing,” Mr. Biden said at an outdoor venue in Westby, Wisconsin.
Mr. Biden is on an “Investing in America” tour highlighting his efforts to lift the economy through policies known as “Bidenomics.”
The tour allows the president to promote his tenure while serving as a tacit way to promote Ms. Harris’ presidential bid against Mr. Trump, the GOP nominee.
The White House was quick to point out Thursday that Ms. Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the 2002 Inflation Reduction Act in the evenly divided Senate, and Mr. Biden took a swipe at Wisconsin Republicans who voted against the legislation and still want to repeal it.
At one point, Mr. Biden seemed to say the name of the IRA bill was a distraction from the fact it was historic climate legislation, a distinction that could attract young voters.
“We should have named it what it was, but — at any rate,” Mr. Biden said.
The term Bidenomics is toxic, politically, given stubbornly high prices and recent turmoil in the stock market and employment figures. The president insists his effort to expand the economy from the “bottom up and middle out” has worked for Americans.
But Mr. Trump frequently points to high costs as a reason to vote for his side instead of the vice president, who has served alongside Mr. Biden for nearly four years. He says states like New Hampshire, which broke for Democrats in recent elections, are in play this season because of soaring energy costs.
Ms. Harris is running as a change-driven candidate while trying to tie herself to Mr. Biden’s economic achievement, which is risky.
Voters have given Mr. Biden poor marks for handling the economy during most of his presidency. His economic approval ratings have languished in the low 30% range since 2021 as inflation soared.
Ms. Harris’ dual message of taking credit for some of Mr. Biden’s economic policies while distancing herself from others is reflected in polls.
An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released last month revealed that more voters trust Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee, to handle the economy than Ms. Harris. The poll also found that the public overwhelmingly thinks Ms. Harris has had limited influence on Mr. Biden’s economic policies, 64% to 33%.
The White House thinks rural investments from the IRA bill are a political winner.
The Department of Agriculture will distribute the new electrification money to 16 rural electric cooperatives serving 5 million entities, including households, businesses and schools.
The administration said the money will be spent on energy projects that use wind, solar, hydropower and other sources. It will support transmission and substation upgrades and types of software that could help grids operate and lower costs.
“This financing will reduce electricity bills for rural families and businesses, who for too long have faced higher energy costs than the rest of the country due to the challenges of providing electricity in rural and remote areas,” the White House said in a fact sheet.
The newly funded projects will affect residents in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming, according to the White House.
• Jeff Mordock contributed to this report.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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