President Biden Unveils $3.3 Billion Infrastructure Funding in Milwaukee

President Joe Biden waves to supporters after speaking at an event about lowering costs for American families at the Granite State YMCA Allard Center of Goffstown in Goffstown, N.H., on March 11, 2024. Sophie Park/Getty Images

President Joe Biden kicked off his two-day trip through Wisconsin and Michigan on March 13 as he moved through the Midwest to create momentum for his reelection campaign.

President Biden first made an announcement in Milwaukee about a $3.3 billion investment that will be awarded for infrastructure projects in underprivileged communities.

The initiatives, which are expected to be funded through the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021, are intended to assist in the repair of neighborhoods in communities of African Americans, Hispanics, and Chinese people who were cut off from their surroundings by large highways and roads many years ago.

“I’m here to announce the first of its kind investment of 3.3 billion and 132 projects in 42 states that can help right historic wrongs, and in the process delivering environmental justice by reconnecting disadvantaged communities, neighborhoods, new opportunities for future, and future prosperity, and many possibilities,” the president said to an enthusiastic crowd.

During his comments, the president went on to talk about further infrastructure goals that his administration is continuing to propel forward, saying: “We’re on the way to delivering affordable, high-speed internet to every American at low cost.

“We’re creating spaces to live, and work, and play safely, and to breathe clean air, and to shop at a nearby grocery stock with fresh and healthy food. We’re taking on housing discrimination, increasing access to homeownership, and building more homes and apartments to bring the cost of rent down.”

The president fulfilled the political expectation for his campaign to speak to the black and Latino communities, calling the investment an “act of hope, and the share of black and Latino Americans employed in Milwaukee in 2022 is the highest in more than a decade.” The president went on to tout his administration’s efforts to lift black and Latino children out of poverty through the child tax credit made possible to all low-income working families by the American Rescue Plan.

Due to his victory in Georgia, President Biden was able to secure a second consecutive Democratic candidacy on Tuesday night when he won enough delegates to secure the nomination. In preparation for his most recent trip to the Midwest, the president has been to the states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and New Hampshire.

Along with Pennsylvania, which is the state in which Biden was born and has traveled to more than any other state, the states of Michigan and Wisconsin are considered to be part of the “blue wall.”

In 2016, former President Donald Trump was able to flip all three of these seats in order to win the presidency. However, President Biden was able to reclaim them four years ago, and it is thought that he will need to maintain them in order to gain a second term.

In the coming weeks, President Biden also intends to visit North Carolina and other states that are considered to be battlegrounds. While his campaign is in the process of hiring and training organizers and assembling volunteers, the campaign leadership has been working toward the opening of field offices in crucial swing-state areas.

Despite the president’s poor approval ratings and polling that shows the majority of people, including a majority of Democrats, do not want him to seek reelection, the Biden campaign is hoping that the on-the-ground organization can help them overcome these challenges.

At the end of his comments, President Biden took a swipe at his political competitor, saying, “My predecessor failed the most basic duty any president owes American people; the duty of care, just to care. In my view, that’s unforgivable.”

President Biden went on to say that his administration has made changes since President Trump left office and that he has “never been more optimistic about America’s future.”

“Things are gonna change no matter who’s president in a big way. They’re gonna change much for the better or much worse. All we have to do, folks, is remember who in God’s name we are. We are the United States of America ... There’s nothing beyond America’s capacity, if we do it together.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.