MILWAUKEE (NEWSnet/AP) — President Joe Biden focused on manufacturing jobs in a speech at a Wisconsin factory, putting up his ideas for growth against Republican rivals in a bid to sway voters in a key state in the 2024 presidential election.

“It's really kind of basic: we just decided to invest in America again,” Biden said Tuesday. “That's what it's all about.”

His arrival in Milwaukee came on the eve of the first anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act. Polls show many citizens know little about it or what it attempts to accomplish. It also occurred a week before Republicans are scheduled to arrive in the city Aug. 23 for the party’s first presidential debate. As Biden spoke, much of current political discussion focused on his predecessor, Donald Trump, who was charged Monday in Georgia on an alleged scheme to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Wisconsin is among critical states where Biden needs to persuade voters that his policies are having a positive impact by generating roughly $500 billion in corporate investments in factories and other facilities. The president ignored Trump in his speech, but challenged the state's Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who was re-elected in 2022. Biden said Johnson’s ideas are in opposition to “the conservative Republican view, the so-called MAGA view, which is focused on corporate profits.”

Republican lawmakers have criticized Biden's economic leadership, nothing that inflation reached a four-decade peak in summer 2022 and said many U.S. families are still struggling as a result of higher prices.

“Real wages are down and gas prices are up,” said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on X, formerly known at Twitter. “You are paying the price for failed leadership.”

Biden toured Ingeteam, a clean-energy manufacturer of onshore wind turbine generators in Milwaukee, and talked up provisions of the law to boost domestic manufacturing and clean energy and reduce the cost of health care. According to the White House, Ingeteam plans to hire 100 workers using Bipartisan Infrastructure Law money to start producing electric vehicle charging stations domestically.

Also timed to Biden’s trip, multinational tech firm Siemens is set to announce it will start manufacturing solar inverters in Wisconsin's Kenosha County, a move prompted by increased demand brought by tax incentives from the IRA law.

Administration officials say the trip is aimed at recognizing the effects of the law, which passed Congress on party-line votes. According to the White House, in Wisconsin, private firms have committed more than $3 billion in manufacturing and clean energy investments since Biden was inaugurated.

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