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If the data center was paying a decent amount of taxes surely it would help though right? In theory the taxes would go towards pro social uses.

by ianm218 2mo ago

tyromaniac 2mo ago
Worth checking out https://buildermuse.com/economy/every-state-offering-data-center-tax-incentives/ https://buildermuse.com/economy/every-state-offering-data-ce...
deadbunny 2mo ago
Which would be a good argument if the datacenters actually paid any taxes. They shop around for tens to hundreds of millions in tax breaks from officials who believe the lies like "we'll create thousands of jobs!".
- ofrzeta 2mo ago
  TFA cites "Each project requires thousands of skilled workers during the two to six year construction period (nearly 10,000 in Mount Pleasant)" so maybe it's not totally fiction (at least during build time).
  - bob001 2mo ago
    To me that's not sustainable. It just brings in outside workers, distorts the economy in bad way for locals through increased costs, distorts their daily life in a bad way and then it all goes away leaving a void in its wake. Like the olympics.
    - ianm218 2mo ago
      The Olympics are seen as a net negative for local economies though because it requires tons of local investment for a temporary payoff so the juice (billions of dollars of infra) isn’t worth the squeeze (a few weeks of high utilization followed by a glut). For data centers you get a medium term boost to the economy + long term tax revenue. The externalities of data centers are quite low if you don’t put them right in someone’s neighborhood.
    - throwaway2037 2mo ago
      This is a weird comment to me. Think about green energy, specifically solar panels and wind farms. Almost by definition, the jobs created are only during installation. (Ok, there is a little bit of long-term maintenance, but a tiny fraction.) Would you say the same about those projects? It is unavoidable that the modern world needs data centers (how many is open for debate). It is a fact of life that most of the jobs associated with data centers are during the installation, not the ongoing maintenance. Again: Are you trying to say that building any and all data centers is bad for your reasons? I will give another example: When a company builds a highly automated factory, the same occurs. Inside the factory, there are very few highly skills jobs. Most of them are low skill (moving boxes and refilling automated machines that are cheaper than automating the work). Again: Are you saying that we should not be building these highly automated factories for your reasons?
      - tokioyoyo 2mo ago
        > It is unavoidable that the modern world needs data centers (how many is open for debate) You know, I’m currently having drinks with a friend who has no connection to the tech world, and asked him about this line explicitly curious of what he thinks about it. He said “I have no idea why such things would be unavoidable”. And that is the sentiment of the general populace towards AI/DCs and etc.
        throwaway2037 2mo ago
        Your reply is disingenuous. > a friend who has no connection to the tech world I assume that you mean that they do not work in the tech world. However, surely they use lots of tech services in their life. Do they stream film/TV on NetFlix or YouTube? Do they use social media like Facebook or Insagram or TikTok? Does they use email? Do they use WhatsApp or message to chat with friends/family on their mobile phone? Do they have "cloud storage" for their photos? Do they shop online using Amazon? Do they use Google Maps for navigation? I assume that most adults do at least some of these things. Where does they think the servers run behind the scenes? Simple: In a data center. Now ask your friend to imagine his life without all of those things, because all of them require data centers.
  - ModernMech 2mo ago
    My sister dates a guy who works on these kinds of projects. He’s based out of Chicago, and goes to remote places like Idaho or Ohio to build them. They put him up in cheap temporary housing, I guess that generates some local money, but he’s very quickly moving on to the next job. They’re not hiring locals for these tasks, they don’t have the skills. The people who are benefitting are mostly local landlords.
    - throwaway2037 2mo ago
      [dead]
  - pibaker 2mo ago
    If comrade1234 has to get contractors from 90 miles away just to clear some trees, there is no way they are going to hire locals to build a data center.
- actionfromafar 2mo ago
  Some believe the lies. Some just believe in a good golf club.
bob001 2mo ago
City taxes don't fix a broken economic flywheel. State taxes go to others and also don't fix it. You need a functional economy with jobs, income, spending and all that jazz. A small amount of taxes with no second order benefits is worth relatively little.
- ianm218 2mo ago
  Sure but progress over perfection right? More tax revenue puts you in a better spot to attack those problems than not having it. Even just doing what Northern Virginia does and lowering people’s property taxes gives homeowners more disposable income/ lowers prices for renters which is a start.
  - genericdrone436 2mo ago
    You realize that Loudoun County, VA has the highest median family income of any county in the US, right? Its not an economically struggling region that needs permanent jobs.
mapontosevenths 2mo ago
They often don't. In my area the locals gave them giant tax breaks in the hope of bringing in jobs that dont exist.
blitzar 2mo ago
> If the data center was paying a decent amount of taxes if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle
- ianm218 2mo ago
  This is a needlessly low effort reply that hurts the discussion. Some data centers are paying lots of taxes and upgrading local grids, others are bribing local politicians or lobbying for abatements. That is a much more substantive discussion than blanket anti growth.
ModernMech 2mo ago
A school and hospital would do that more than a data center tho. Look at Merced California, used to be a nowhere destination. They built a UC there and now it’s a place students, PhDs and MDs from around the world want to move to. If UC Merced were a data center it would attract no one, it would drain and pollute the lake, and Merced CA would still be a nowhere destination.
- ianm218 2mo ago
  We’re talking about rural Wisconsin - there is no world where you need to make a trade off between having school and a data center. Put a school in one field and a data center in a field further away. It just seems like you should tax the data center and then build a school or whatever else you think would help the local economy.
  - ModernMech 2mo ago
    A data center turns the whole town into an industrial zone because of the sound and water pollution. No one wants to live near one, especially not doctors and teachers with young families who can choose to live anywhere.
    - inemesitaffia 2mo ago
      Merced has a datacenter.
    - ianm218 2mo ago
      Data centers don’t cause water pollution generally or turn entire towns into industrial zones. There is more than enough room in rural WI towns for industrial and non industrial parts. > No one wants to live near one, especially not doctors and teachers with young families who can choose to live anywhere. Northern Virginia is one of the top locations for the kind of people who “can live anywhere” and is the world capital of data centers. And part of that appeal in NoVA is low property taxes due to data centers paying taxes. There is some real aspects of the data center debate but I don’t think your engaging with them

If the data center was paying a decent amount of taxes surely it would help though right? In theory the taxes would go towards pro social uses.

by ianm218 2mo ago

If the data center was paying a decent amount of taxes surely it would help though right? In theory the taxes would go towards pro social uses.

tyromaniac 2mo ago

Worth checking out https://buildermuse.com/economy/every-state-offering-data-center-tax-incentives/ https://buildermuse.com/economy/every-state-offering-data-ce...

deadbunny 2mo ago

Which would be a good argument if the datacenters actually paid any taxes. They shop around for tens to hundreds of millions in tax breaks from officials who believe the lies like "we'll create thousands of jobs!".

ofrzeta 2mo ago
TFA cites "Each project requires thousands of skilled workers during the two to six year construction period (nearly 10,000 in Mount Pleasant)" so maybe it's not totally fiction (at least during build time).
- bob001 2mo ago
  To me that's not sustainable. It just brings in outside workers, distorts the economy in bad way for locals through increased costs, distorts their daily life in a bad way and then it all goes away leaving a void in its wake. Like the olympics.
  - ianm218 2mo ago
    The Olympics are seen as a net negative for local economies though because it requires tons of local investment for a temporary payoff so the juice (billions of dollars of infra) isn’t worth the squeeze (a few weeks of high utilization followed by a glut). For data centers you get a medium term boost to the economy + long term tax revenue. The externalities of data centers are quite low if you don’t put them right in someone’s neighborhood.
  - throwaway2037 2mo ago
    This is a weird comment to me. Think about green energy, specifically solar panels and wind farms. Almost by definition, the jobs created are only during installation. (Ok, there is a little bit of long-term maintenance, but a tiny fraction.) Would you say the same about those projects? It is unavoidable that the modern world needs data centers (how many is open for debate). It is a fact of life that most of the jobs associated with data centers are during the installation, not the ongoing maintenance. Again: Are you trying to say that building any and all data centers is bad for your reasons? I will give another example: When a company builds a highly automated factory, the same occurs. Inside the factory, there are very few highly skills jobs. Most of them are low skill (moving boxes and refilling automated machines that are cheaper than automating the work). Again: Are you saying that we should not be building these highly automated factories for your reasons?
    - tokioyoyo 2mo ago
      > It is unavoidable that the modern world needs data centers (how many is open for debate) You know, I’m currently having drinks with a friend who has no connection to the tech world, and asked him about this line explicitly curious of what he thinks about it. He said “I have no idea why such things would be unavoidable”. And that is the sentiment of the general populace towards AI/DCs and etc.
      - throwaway2037 2mo ago
        Your reply is disingenuous. > a friend who has no connection to the tech world I assume that you mean that they do not work in the tech world. However, surely they use lots of tech services in their life. Do they stream film/TV on NetFlix or YouTube? Do they use social media like Facebook or Insagram or TikTok? Does they use email? Do they use WhatsApp or message to chat with friends/family on their mobile phone? Do they have "cloud storage" for their photos? Do they shop online using Amazon? Do they use Google Maps for navigation? I assume that most adults do at least some of these things. Where does they think the servers run behind the scenes? Simple: In a data center. Now ask your friend to imagine his life without all of those things, because all of them require data centers.
- ModernMech 2mo ago
  My sister dates a guy who works on these kinds of projects. He’s based out of Chicago, and goes to remote places like Idaho or Ohio to build them. They put him up in cheap temporary housing, I guess that generates some local money, but he’s very quickly moving on to the next job. They’re not hiring locals for these tasks, they don’t have the skills. The people who are benefitting are mostly local landlords.
  - throwaway2037 2mo ago
    [dead]
- pibaker 2mo ago
  If comrade1234 has to get contractors from 90 miles away just to clear some trees, there is no way they are going to hire locals to build a data center.
actionfromafar 2mo ago
Some believe the lies. Some just believe in a good golf club.

bob001 2mo ago

City taxes don't fix a broken economic flywheel. State taxes go to others and also don't fix it. You need a functional economy with jobs, income, spending and all that jazz. A small amount of taxes with no second order benefits is worth relatively little.

ianm218 2mo ago
Sure but progress over perfection right? More tax revenue puts you in a better spot to attack those problems than not having it. Even just doing what Northern Virginia does and lowering people’s property taxes gives homeowners more disposable income/ lowers prices for renters which is a start.
- genericdrone436 2mo ago
  You realize that Loudoun County, VA has the highest median family income of any county in the US, right? Its not an economically struggling region that needs permanent jobs.

mapontosevenths 2mo ago

They often don't. In my area the locals gave them giant tax breaks in the hope of bringing in jobs that dont exist.

blitzar 2mo ago

> If the data center was paying a decent amount of taxes if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle

ianm218 2mo ago
This is a needlessly low effort reply that hurts the discussion. Some data centers are paying lots of taxes and upgrading local grids, others are bribing local politicians or lobbying for abatements. That is a much more substantive discussion than blanket anti growth.

ModernMech 2mo ago

A school and hospital would do that more than a data center tho. Look at Merced California, used to be a nowhere destination. They built a UC there and now it’s a place students, PhDs and MDs from around the world want to move to. If UC Merced were a data center it would attract no one, it would drain and pollute the lake, and Merced CA would still be a nowhere destination.

ianm218 2mo ago
We’re talking about rural Wisconsin - there is no world where you need to make a trade off between having school and a data center. Put a school in one field and a data center in a field further away. It just seems like you should tax the data center and then build a school or whatever else you think would help the local economy.
- ModernMech 2mo ago
  A data center turns the whole town into an industrial zone because of the sound and water pollution. No one wants to live near one, especially not doctors and teachers with young families who can choose to live anywhere.
  - inemesitaffia 2mo ago
    Merced has a datacenter.
  - ianm218 2mo ago
    Data centers don’t cause water pollution generally or turn entire towns into industrial zones. There is more than enough room in rural WI towns for industrial and non industrial parts. > No one wants to live near one, especially not doctors and teachers with young families who can choose to live anywhere. Northern Virginia is one of the top locations for the kind of people who “can live anywhere” and is the world capital of data centers. And part of that appeal in NoVA is low property taxes due to data centers paying taxes. There is some real aspects of the data center debate but I don’t think your engaging with them