(StraightNews.org) – President Biden has announced a $3.3 billion Microsoft investment in Wisconsin. The President visited Racine, in the Badger State’s southeast, to tout a new Artificial Intelligence data center that will be constructed where previous Donald Trump plans failed to materialize.
The visit was Biden’s fourth to the crucial swing state this year, and he used the opportunity to attack Trump’s record and promote his own. He said his predecessor broke promises, but he intends to keep his. In 2021, the site was earmarked for a Foxconn facility intending to bring 13,000 jobs to the area, but the plan never came to fruition.
Microsoft said it would invest $3.3 billion by 2026, and Biden promised new jobs and training for lucrative careers that would not require an expensive college education. The data center will employ around 4,000 people, and further Microsoft investment in Wisconsin’s Gateway Technical College will create a new training facility to prepare students for roles in science, technology, and math.
Analysts suggest that the President is keen to increasingly upsell his economic record and attack Trump’s as November draws closer, but some note that swing states have seen the least economic growth since Biden took office in 2021.
Under the Biden administration, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan have all seen lower economic growth than most states. Meanwhile, inflation in Georgia and North Carolina is above the national average, and wage growth is lower than average in most swing states.
Biden’s praise of his economic record appears not to resonate with voters as polls show that Americans remain worried about their finances and rising costs. During an interview in Wisconsin, however, the President said polls are wrong and people have enough money to spend. Reminded by a reporter that grocery prices have increased by as much as 30%, Biden blamed it on corporate greed. He referenced “shrinkflation,” or the reduction in the size of a product but for the same price, and said he is “working on” tackling this.
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