Biden says rural electrification and internet improvements underscore 'American comeback'

WESTBY, Wisconsin — President Joe Biden traveled to rural southwest Wisconsin on Thursday to champion new investments in electrification and expanded high-speed internet, proclaiming that “all these investments mean family farms can stay in the family.”

In the town of Westby, Biden announced $7.3 billion in investments for 16 cooperatives that will provide electricity for millions of families in rural areas across 23 states, with the goal of lowering the cost of badly needed electricity connections in hard-to-reach areas.

Funding for the project comes from the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in August 2022 and passed in Congress along party lines. The law invests roughly $13 billion in rural electrification across multiple programs and will create 4,500 permanent jobs and 16,000 construction jobs, according to the White House, which called the effort the largest investment in rural electrification since the New Deal in the 1930s.

Biden also championed 2021's infrastructure law, which was approved with some support from congressional Republicans and which he said had provided 72,000 additional Wisconsin homes and small businesses with high-speed internet.

“Just like we're making the most significant investment in rural electrification since FDR, we're also making the most significant investment ever in affordable, high-speed internet because affordable high-speed internet is just as essential today as electricity was a century ago,” Biden said, referring to New Deal architect and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Biden said "all of these investments mean family farms can stay in the family, rural entrepreneurs can build their dreams, your children and grandchildren won’t have to leave home to make a living.”

“That’s stopping now because we’re spreading opportunities to benefit everyone," he added.

Before talking policy, Biden addressed Wednesday’s school shooting in Georgia, where a 14-year-old student fatally shot four people. The president lamented that, during a back-to-school season that should have been a “joyous and exciting,” another community in America was instead left “absolutely shattered” by gun violence.

Biden endorsed calls for stricter requirements for owners to lock up and better secure their firearms — leaning into the fact that he himself is a gun owner.

“There are too many people who are able to access guns that shouldn't be able to," he said. "So let's require safe storage of firearms. I know I've mine locked up.”

Biden also praised Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he endorsed after dropping his reelection bid in July. And he sharply criticized her opponent in November, former President Donald Trump, for failing to keep promises to spur public works and instead running up towering federal deficits by passing tax cuts that Biden argued primarily benefited the rich.

“In thousands of cities and towns across the country and across Wisconsin, we're seeing the great American comeback story," Biden said, contrasting that with Trump and top Republicans who he said talk "about how bad off we are.”

“Today's announcement is about far more than just giving rural America the power to turn on the lights. It's about giving the power to shape our own future,” Biden said.

Democrats consider Wisconsin to be one of the must-win states in November’s presidential election between Trump and Harris. Biden won the state in 2020 by about 20,000 votes, flipping Wisconsin to the Democratic column after Trump narrowly won it in 2016.

Thursday was also personal for Biden, who returned to Wisconsin to revisit a promise he made early in his presidency to provide, among other infrastructure improvements, better internet to rural areas.

“It isn’t a luxury; it’s now a necessity, like water and electricity,” Biden said at the La Crosse Municipal Transit Utility in June 2021. White House deputy chief of staff Natalie Quillian said the latest visit means Biden has "delivered on so many of those promises.”