President Joe Biden will be in Greensboro, N.C. Thursday, where he will be talking about the benefits of legislation aimed at strengthening manufacturing in an effort to improve U.S. competition in the global economy and lower inflation.
Biden will be visiting a new engineering research and innovation complex at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the largest historically Black college or university in the country.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden will meet faculty and students studying cybersecurity and robotics and plan to discuss how the bill, previously known as the Bipartisan Innovation Act, can boost the economy. Psaki said he will highlight the administration's manufacturing strategy and regional investments in clean technology and advanced manufacturing.
She said that it means stronger supply chains, more manufacturing jobs, and lower prices for consumers as we break up the bottlenecks that have driven inflation over the last year. He wants to build on that success by passing the Bipartisan Innovation Act to create more good-paying jobs and lower prices for working families. Congress has created a bicameral conference committee to try to find an agreement that includes elements of separate bills passed by the House and Senate.
The White House said that the legislation would create a new directorate at the National Science Foundation that would focus on manufacturing, quantum computing and artificial intelligence. It said the measure would create a new hub within the Department of Commerce that would offer five-year funding to support regional partnerships centered around technology.
The president's visit came after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday that U.S. inflation hit a 40 year high of 8.5 percent, mainly due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, rent hikes and gas prices.