Residents across Milwaukee can see evidence of federal funding from legislation passed under the Biden administration if they know where to look.
This is evident in the growing number of solar panels near the airport. A dilapidated house has been restored and sold to a first-time buyer. Lead paint and pipe removal. Demolition of an abandoned shopping mall. Crime Laboratory and Emergency Management Center. A clinic and food pantry for people with an HIV fund that supports numerous nonprofit organizations that provide services such as violence prevention efforts and after-school programs.
But it will cut significantly more than $1 billion to Milwaukee County included in the American Rescue Plan Act, the bipartisan Infrastructure Act, and the Inflation Control Act, legislation that President Biden counts among his greatest achievements. There are many things that are hard to see, such as the funds used to stop them. Public safety during the pandemic. Some funds have yet to be spent, including $3.5 million to rebuild the local zoo's penguin exhibit and $5.1 million to repair the roof at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport.
This presents both an opportunity and a challenge for Biden's re-election campaign, which is trying to show Americans how federal investments have improved lives. Doing so is difficult because the law delegates many spending decisions to state and local officials, obscuring the source of the funds.
“The connection between the resources themselves and what's happening on the ground that people can see is very opaque,” said Robert Craig, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Citizens Action of Wisconsin. “We need to find some way to communicate the idea that there is tangible progress being made to improve the quality of life within people's communities, and that there is more progress to come.”
Milwaukee holds special weight as a Democratic stronghold in a battleground state and as the site of this summer's Republican National Convention. According to polls, Mr. Biden is in a virtual dead heat in the state with former President Donald J. Trump, the likely Republican nominee. In an April poll of Wisconsin voters conducted by Marquette University School of Law, 58% said Mr. Trump had a “good track record,” compared to 44% for Mr. Biden.
“They see Democrats and the Biden administration just continually throwing money around thinking it's going to help, but it's making things worse,” said Hilario DeLeon, chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party. “The cost of food and energy continues to rise,” he said. Ascend/rise. Trump will use a break from his Manhattan criminal trial to visit the Milwaukee suburbs on Wednesday, hoping to get his message across.
No Republicans voted for the American Rescue Plan Act or the Inflation Control Act, but they have frequently attended events to showcase their accomplishments.
So federal and local Democratic officials are stepping up efforts to explain where the money is coming from. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen visited Milwaukee in January, and Mr. Biden followed suit in March, announcing the beneficiaries of new federal funding, including a $36.6 million overhaul of the central highway and investments in workforce training. emphasized. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm also visited in March to draw attention to incentives that encourage local manufacturing of clean energy equipment.
The effort continued in April, with an appearance by Tom Perez, former Democratic National Committee chairman and head of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. The city organized an event on a street corner in an area that typically has low voter turnout to showcase the results of a $12 million investment to preserve and expand Milwaukee's tree canopy.
Perez also held a press conference to celebrate the community center, new mental health services center, and renovations to housing built by Habitat for Humanity. These projects are supported by the American Rescue Plan Act, which funnels $394 million to the city and $184 million to the county in loosely restricted funds, not including federal funds distributed by the state. Ta.
“What we're trying to do is demonstrate that the American Rescue Plan changed communities in many different ways,” Perez said in a subsequent interview. “It saved me from being evicted. It allowed me to buy a house. It gave me access to clean water.”
The legislation comes at a critical time for Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who took office in 2020 under precarious financial circumstances. The cash infusion avoided painful layoffs and bought time for local officials to lobby the state for permission to impose sales taxes to close budget gaps. It also funded long-overdue investments in maintenance and affordable housing, including the bungalow being built behind Mr. Perez's news conference podium.
“Did I mention we need to express our gratitude to the Biden administration?” Crowley said with a laugh at the event.
A similar story is playing out across the country as trillions of dollars from the three laws flow in, acting as a kind of slow-acting medicine for local economies. However, smaller towns and rural areas often lack the capacity to find and manage competitive grants, and some locations are more successful than others in recovering funding.
Milwaukee has the people to do it, and leaders believe their success is due to collaboration across all levels of Wisconsin government. Additionally, many big-ticket items follow a pattern. So the plans are already in place and we're just waiting for enough funding to get started.
For example, $275 million from the Infrastructure Act, the single largest investment in the metropolitan area, will help rally local governments around efforts to clean up the Milwaukee Estuary, and it will be added to the federal list of “Area of Concern.” The Milwaukee Estuary could be removed from the. lake. The project will fund a facility to store contaminated sediment dredged from the riverbed and eventually create 43 acres of new lakefront land.
Many of the projects on Milwaukee's wish list also align with the Biden administration's priorities, including racial equity, walking and biking, and renewable energy. This strengthened the city's application, which included a $14.3 million grant to rebuild Villard Avenue, a major commercial corridor in the historically black Old North Milwaukee neighborhood.
The city had also approved a Climate and Equity Plan in 2023 that identified 10 decarbonization strategies that would create jobs and reduce costs for residents. A federal program brought this plan to life, allowing for the construction of solar energy facilities and the purchase of vehicles to help electrify the city's fleet.
With the help of other federal funding, the city is rapidly adding bike lanes, extending curbs and adding miles of curbs to combat the reckless driving that has fueled the rise in traffic fatalities across the county in recent years. The road was repaired.
These projects rarely come with an indication of who is paying for them.
“Every time we communicate about these projects, we try to remind people because no one understands what the federal government is doing,” City Engineer Kevin Muth said. . “Thanks to federal funding, we are now able to do some of these things after years of saying, 'We don't have money.'”
In Milwaukee, many federally funded projects are staffed by unionized workers. Construction unions support Biden's reelection bid in a direct way that this law is likely to affect the campaign.
Encouraging local governments to deploy resources is one thing, but getting local residents to take advantage of programs can be even more difficult.
Kevin Cain is co-founder of Green Homeowners United, a Milwaukee company that informs people living in older, drafty homes about subsidies for installing insulation, heat pumps and solar panels. We are doing activities. The Inflation Control Act tax credit for such renovations is valid for one year and can be used until 2032, but only tax-paying residents can benefit. The rebate program, which provides up to $8,000 to low-income households, won't be funded until the fall.
Kaine said he tried to let customers know where the aid was coming from, but he told Biden administration staff that the delays wouldn't help. “If they really wanted this plan in place before the election, I don't know why people aren't making more of a fuss about this,” Kaine said.
It will take more effort to attract people like Amber Wyland. Amber Wyland was one of the few neighbors who attended Perez's canopy event with her three young children.
“Good luck on the South Side,” Mr. Wyland, 34, said when told about the investment in a low-income neighborhood near gentrifying downtown Milwaukee. She would like to see more speed bumps installed on nearby highways, something the city has done a great deal of with federal funds, but she said she won't vote on it.
Biden administration officials don't seem concerned. After all, the purpose of re-election campaigns is to tell voters what the candidate did and why it improved their lives.
“This movie is still playing,” said Gene Sperling, the White House's American Rescue Plan implementation coordinator. “It's important to get the right policies in place, but there's still time to better tell this story.”