Harris to make first visit to NC as VP to tout jobs plan. Here’s where she’s going.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional information on Harris’ trip.

Vice President Kamala Harris will make her first trip to North Carolina since taking office to sell the American Jobs Plan.

Harris is set to talk Monday at Guilford Technical Community College and tour Thomas Built Buses, which manufactures electric school buses, in High Point, the White House announced late Sunday.

Harris will arrive and depart from Piedmont Triad International Airport. She will talk about the plan for growing the nation’s economy and creating jobs. The 11:50 a.m. event at Guilford Tech will be streamed on the internet.

Harris made several stops in the state during her own presidential bid and as the vice presidential nominee, including an October event in Charlotte and late October stops in Fayetteville and Goldsboro.

The American Jobs Plan is President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure proposal, which includes money for roads, bridges and rail as well as water projects, elderly care and broadband.

The plan includes “a $174 billion investment to win the (electric vehicle) market,” according to the White House’s summary of the proposal. It includes electrifying 20% of the nation’s yellow school bus fleet.

Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, attended a White House meeting with Biden and Harris on the plan. The meeting was attended by four members of the House and four members of the Senate with Republicans and Democrats evenly represented.

“There certainly is general acknowledgment that this is a pressing, national problem when you have all the roads and bridges crumbling that we do. The rationale for this is widely accepted,” said Price, who serves as the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee on transportation and housing.

“There is some disagreement over how widely you define infrastructure, and there’s some disagreement about how you pay for it, though there is agreement we have to pay for it to some significant degree. It can’t just be borrowed money.”

Republicans have criticized the plan for its wide definition of infrastructure and its price tag.

North Carolina has 1,460 bridges and 3,116 miles of highway in poor condition, according to a fact sheet from by the White House. Some of those numbers come from a report by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.

The six most traveled structurally deficient bridges in the state, according to the association, are in Wake and Mecklenburg counties.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the plan would directly create 2.7 million jobs, walking back a figure of 19 million jobs for the entire economy that Biden had first used.

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