Ohio, one of the nation’s data center destination hot spots, is suspending a tax break that has been critical to its competition with other states to attract the massive new facilities that power and train artificial intelligence chatbots.
The move Wednesday by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine comes as tax breaks for energy-hungry AI data centers are increasingly playing a role in state budgets and the industry is under pressure to pay the full costs of the vast network of its computing warehouses needed to power AI.
The size of Ohio’s tax break skyrocketed, dwarfing previous projections, as opposition to data centers is sweeping through cities, suburbs and towns there and prompting lawmakers to form a committee to study the impact.
In the meantime, residents are trying to bypass the GOP-controlled Legislature and get a referendum on November’s midterm election ballot that’s designed to permanently ban hyperscale data centers, likely the strictest such statewide ban under consideration in the U.S.
DeWine’s office cited the rising utilization of the tax break and the state Legislature’s new research undertaking to declare a “pause” in granting it to new applicants.
“The governor felt it was the right time to let the citizens know, let businesses know that we’re going to pause on new offers of this tax incentive while that process plays out,” DeWine’s spokesperson, Dan Tierney, said Thursday.
Hot take: companies shouldn’t get tax breaks, sweetheart deals, etc. ever, for any reason other than being non-profit public good companies. Succeed or fail on your own merits. Bootstraps and such, just like us poors are supposed to be able to do.
In fact, taxes should scale with a company’s purported value, profits, something along those lines.
The more you make the more you pay, until eventually you hit the ceiling, and everything above that is taxed at 100%. Same with money hoarding individuals.
I’m so tired of these welfare queens living on the public dole. They come into our communities with their hands out, trying to get something for nothing, while giving basically nothing back to society and spawning more of themselves to continue the leeching. And they take so so much more than all the social programs combined would. At what point do we say enough is enough?
I agree. For sake of argument, I would offer that us poors do get a tax break for investing in the future, AKA a child tax credit. It’s meager, but maybe similar?
A trillion-dollar-industry being forced to actually pay their operating costs.
What a novel idea!Love how this thing that people universally do not want is hoovering up money like nothing we’ve seen before, while simultaneously consuming resources we need on an unprecedented scale…as healthcare, education, and infrastructure – all things in serious need of funding – continue to wither into dreams that will never come true for the people all this money is coming from. The very same money that could fix all these things. The annual budget the US has to throw around could easily make this one of the most advanced/cutting edge civilizations in the world but instead it’s attempting to be the second-biggest surveillance state in the world and enrich a bunch of pedophiles in the process. Just rock-solid work we get done here in this place.
I feel bad for the generations that will be inheriting this shit show.
Silly rabbit, welfare is for filthy rich corporations. Funny I don’t hear American talking about freedom, democracy or markets anymore.
