Time to pump the brakes on Big Tech’s AI boondoggle



America already learned a lesson from the Green New Deal: If an industry survives only on special favors, it isn’t ready to stand on its own.

Yet the same game is playing out again — this time for artificial intelligence. The wealthiest companies in history now demand tax breaks, zoning carve-outs, and energy favors on a scale far greater than green energy firms ever did.

Instead of slamming on the accelerator, Washington should be hitting the brakes.

If AI is truly the juggernaut its backers claim, it should thrive on its merits. Technology designed to enhance human life shouldn’t need human subsidies to survive — or to enrich its corporate patrons.

An unnatural investment

Big Tech boosters insist that we stand on the brink of artificial general intelligence, a force that could outthink and even replace humans. No one denies AI’s influence or its future promise, but does that justify the avalanche of artificial investment now driving half of all U.S. economic growth?

The Trump administration continues to hand out favors to Big Tech to fuel a bubble that may never deliver. As the Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip pointed out earlier this month, the largest companies once dominated because their profits came from low-cost, intangible assets such as software, platforms, and network effects. Users flocked to Facebook, Google, the iPhone, and Windows, and revenue followed — with little up-front infrastructure risk.

The AI model looks nothing like that. Instead of software that scales cheaply, Big Tech is sinking hundreds of billions into land, hardware, power, and water. These hyperscale data centers devour resources with little clarity about demand.

According to Ip’s data: Between 2016 and 2023, the free cash flow and net earnings of Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft rose in tandem. Since 2023, however, net income is up 73% while free cash flow has dropped 30%.

“For all of AI’s obvious economic potential, the financial return remains a question mark,” Ip wrote. “OpenAI and Anthropic, the two leading stand-alone developers of large language models, though growing fast, are losing money.”

Andy Lawrence of the Uptime Institute explained the risk: “To suddenly start building data centers so much denser in power use, with chips 10 times more expensive, for unproven demand — all that is an extraordinary challenge and a gamble.”

The cracks are already beginning to show. GPT-5 has been a bust for the most part. Meta froze hiring in its AI division, with Mark Zuckerberg admitting that “improvement is slow for now.” Even TechCrunch conceded: Throwing more data and computing power at large language models won’t create a “digital god.”

Government on overdrive

Yet government keeps stepping on the gas, even as the industry stalls. The “Mag 7” companies spent $560 billion on AI-related capital expenditures in the past 18 months, while generating only $35 billion in revenue. IT consultancy Gartner projects $475 billion will be spent on data centers this year alone — a 42% jump from 2024. Those numbers make no sense without government intervention.

Consider the favors.

Rezoning laws. Data centers require sprawling land footprints. To make that possible, states and counties are bending rules never waived for power plants, roads, or bridges. Northern Virginia alone now hosts or plans more than 85 million square feet of data centers — equal to nearly 1,500 football fields. West Virginia and Mississippi have even passed laws banning local restrictions outright. Trump’s AI action plan ties federal block grants to removing zoning limits. Nothing about that is natural, balanced, fair, or free-market.

Tax exemptions. Nearly every state competing for data centers — including Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Nebraska — offers sweeping tax breaks. Alabama exempts data centers from sales, property, and income taxes for up to 30 years — for as few as 20 jobs. Oregon and Indiana also give property tax exemptions.

RELATED: Big Tech colonization is real — zoning laws are the last line of defense

Photo by the Washington Post via Getty Images

Regulatory carve-outs. Trump’s executive order calls for easing rules under the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other environmental statutes. Conservatives rightly want fewer burdens across the board — but why should Big Tech’s server farms get faster relief than the power plants needed to supply them?

Federal land giveaways. The AI action plan also makes federal land available for private data centers, handing prime real estate to trillion-dollar corporations at taxpayer expense. No other industry gets this benefit.

Stop the scam

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) put it bluntly: “It’s one thing to use technology to enhance the human experience, but it’s another to have technology supplant the human experience.” Right now, AI resembles wind and solar in their early years — a speculative bubble kept alive only through taxpayer largesse.

If AI is truly the innovation its backers claim, it will thrive without zoning exemptions, tax shelters, and federal handouts. If it cannot survive without special favors, then it isn’t ready. Instead of slamming on the accelerator, Washington should be hitting the brakes.

Property taxes are killing middle-class ownership nationwide



Texans take pride in low taxes. We believe in keeping what we earn. But property taxes undermine that principle — not just in Texas, but across America.

What started as a local way to fund roads and schools has metastasized into a national scandal: a form of government rent on homes we’ve already paid for. Unlike sales taxes, which reflect voluntary spending, property taxes punish ownership itself — a direct affront to freedom and a quiet war on the American dream.

America was built on the promise of land and liberty. Unchecked property taxation makes a mockery of that promise.

It’s not just a Lone Star problem. From New Jersey to Illinois, California to Florida, families are being taxed out of their homes. Soaring appraisals and bloated local budgets trap homeowners on an endless treadmill: Pay off your mortgage, and you’re still stuck with escalating annual bills. That’s not ownership. That’s serfdom cloaked in paperwork.

A rigged system

Local governments dress up this shakedown. They cite needs like schools, roads, and emergency services. But where’s the accountability? Budgets balloon, bureaucracies swell, and taxpayers foot the bill while public trust evaporates. Politicians boast of stable or “lowered” tax rates, yet the truth is plain: When your appraisal jumps, so does your bill. It’s a rigged game of smoke and mirrors.

This system is a bipartisan betrayal. It punishes young families trying to build a future and retirees trying to hang on to what they’ve earned. It squeezes small businesses and destabilizes communities. For those on fixed incomes — especially seniors — it’s a slow-motion eviction notice signed by the state. Even in places like Denton County, Texas, where limited relief exists, it’s just a patch on a broken dam. The broader trend is unmistakable: rising appraisals, rising taxes, and rising resentment.

Who really owns your home?

At the root, property taxes don’t treat citizens as owners. They treat us as permanent tenants of the government. If the state can hike your bill every year based on speculative market guesses, who really owns your land? Not you. The government does. You’re just paying them to stay on it.

RELATED: A tax hike is coming — and it’s not just for the rich

Photo by Douglas Rissing via Getty Images

This is an assault on middle-class stability — and it’s intentional. The ruling class, backed by urban technocrats and local cronies, thrives on an ever-expanding tax base. They want your home to bankroll their pet projects. Can’t afford to keep up? They’ll auction your house on the courthouse steps and call it “revenue recovery.”

Enough.

Time to fight back

The solution isn’t complicated. States need hard caps on tax hikes, not flimsy guidelines. Require automatic rollbacks when appraisals skyrocket. Mandate full transparency on every dollar spent. And no more sneaky tax hikes disguised as “market adjustments.”

If local governments want more revenue, let them make their case to voters in the open — not hide behind bloated Zillow estimates. Critics whine that this would “tie local officials’ hands.” Good. Their hands need tying. We’re not funding empires. We’re protecting homes.

Arthur Laffer’s warnings still ring true: Tax too much, and you kill growth. Over-tax property, and you kill ownership itself. Texas drew families and entrepreneurs by avoiding income taxes and offering stability. If property taxes keep climbing, that magnet will flip — and families will bolt.

Nationwide, it’s already happening. Americans are uprooting from high-tax states, chasing affordability that’s disappearing fast. Census data shows that millions are voting with their feet. But if states don’t overhaul how they fund local government, the problem will follow. The escape hatch is closing.

This isn’t just about economics. It’s about sovereignty. If the government can claim an ever-growing slice of your home’s value, it effectively owns a piece of your life. That’s not freedom — that’s feudalism in a modern shell.

America was built on the promise of land and liberty. Unchecked property taxation makes a mockery of that promise. A nation of owners is becoming a nation of renters — forever indebted to a system that never stops taking.

It’s time for a reckoning.

Texas can lead the way by tightening rollback rules, streamlining protests, and forcing every taxing entity to justify every penny. Other states must follow. Because this isn’t just a local fight. It’s a national crisis.

If we fail, we’re not just losing our homes. We’re losing our country. Put homeowners ahead of bureaucrats. Stop pretending the government owns a stake in our houses. Restore the American dream — not just in speeches, but in law.

Red states get it: Economic freedom beats blue-state gimmicks



After enduring state and local COVID policies that wreaked havoc on the economy, followed by historic inflation that delivered a resounding election victory to Donald Trump, you would think that state and local politicians would learn some economic lessons.

Apparently not. Politicians from blue and red states seem to be getting their lessons from very different schools.

If blue states don’t begin to understand how economics work, they are going to continue to see their power centers dwindle.

In red states, politicians want to enable economic freedom. Property taxes, which impose a heavy, lifelong burden on real estate owners, have been a subject of several politicians looking to improve the opportunity to participate in the American dream of home ownership. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is looking at a state constitutional amendment to potentially eradicate property taxes in the state.

Reviving the American dream

Cliff Maloney, CEO of the strategic grassroots organization Citizens Alliance, explained to Blaze News the significance of this lesson:

When you think about it, you never truly own your home. If you miss just a few tax payments, they’ll seize your property that you saved for and worked so hard to make a home. That’s not freedom — that’s essentially just rent to the state. Our internal data shows that out of the 510,000 Americans we’ve talked to, more than 82% said property taxes are a major concern. They're infuriated that while they're being forced to cut their own budgets to survive in today's economy, local governments refuse to do the same.

While not going quite as far as DeSantis, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) is also trying to deliver some tax relief to property owners, with others in the state working to figure out how to get rid of property taxes in the long term.

Maloney also mentioned that Citizens Alliance's door-knocking and advocacy efforts in New Hampshire “led to abolishing 14 taxes and fees, which has produced a dramatic influx of businesses moving to the state from other nearby states that have a higher tax burden.”

All of this stems from smart economic lessons. Lessons that very blue states have failed to learn.

Democrats haven’t learned anything

After witnessing the inflationary effects of COVID-era stimulus checks — a result that was highly unpopular politically — one might assume politicians would steer clear of repeating the same mistake.

That’s not the case in New York, where Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is laughably handing out “inflation refund” checks, a move even other Democrats are calling a political gimmick — not to mention a bad economic move.

RELATED: How California’s crisis could lead to a big political shift

Carsten Schertzer via iStock/Getty Images

In Virginia, former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, now running for governor, has pledged to raise the minimum wage to $15, another form of market intervention that creates barriers to employment and increases costs.

In Minneapolis, city leaders are considering adding a 2% fee to hotel rooms in an effort to boost tourism — because, apparently, making hotels more expensive is always a good way to get more people to your city.

The people have spoken

Given the importance of the economy to Americans, it’s no surprise that Americans are moving from blue states to red ones. Maloney shared:

We've had the unique opportunity to talk to a lot of new residents during our door-knocking campaigns, and in doing so, our data uncovered that 69% of new residents moved for financial reasons. In 41% of these cases, this was because they were no longer able to afford the skyrocketing cost of living in blue states, while 13% were because of new, better-paying job opportunities.

If blue states don’t begin to understand how economics work, they will continue to see their power centers dwindle. Math doesn’t lie. People are taking their capital and spending power to the states where the math works.

State GOP Lawmakers Move To Slice Taxes While Dems Raise Theirs

State Republicans have slashed income taxes

North Carolina counties demand full property tax payments — even for homes wiped out by Helene



Residents of several counties in North Carolina are still on the hook for the full payment of their property taxes, officials warn, even if their homes were destroyed by Hurricane Helene.

In late September, Helene battered the mountainous region of Western North Carolina and the surrounding states, causing massive floods that swept many structures away or left them in a pile of rubble. As a result, some residents remain in RVs or even tents, despite winter temperatures, as Blaze News previously reported.

Though the devastation in the area is unprecedented, state law requires property tax payments to be paid by midnight on January 6, no matter what. So county leaders say their hands are tied.

"Please be aware: North Carolina law does not allow property tax waivers or exceptions due to natural disasters," read an online statement from Buncombe County, one of those hardest hit by Helene. "Regardless of circumstances stemming from Hurricane Helene, property taxes are still due by Jan. 6. The Tax Office is here to help you figure out a plan, so please contact us as soon as possible."

'No one should be forced to pay property taxes on a home that no longer exists. This is common sense.'

Matt Van Swol, an Asheville resident who has carefully chronicled on X the underwhelming state and federal government response to Helene, was dumbfounded by the intransigence on the part of local and state leaders.

"No one should be forced to pay property taxes on a home that no longer exists. This is common sense," Van Swol wrote on Monday.

Government websites for Henderson, Jackson, Rutherford, and Transylvania Counties gave similar reminders about the January 6 deadline for property tax payments, even as many still offer links to those still needing assistance in connection with Hurricane Helene.

Additionally, most properties will still be taxed at their 2024, pre-storm value. For residents of Eastern North Carolina, which avoided the brunt of Hurricane Helene, some of those values went through the roof, resulting in a shocking 2024 tax bill.

Rumors recently spread throughout Johnson County about tax bills that jumped by as much as 75% from 2023. While the county acknowledged a 70.6% value increase countywide, it tried to quell growing concerns by noting that property taxes and property values do not increase at the same rate.

"It is important to note that a 70.6% increase in property value does not equate to a 70.6% increase in property taxes," said a county statement issued on January 6. "Tax rates for 2025 will be set by the County, districts, and municipalities in June, with tax bills expected to be mailed around August 1, 2025."

Concerns about property taxes have prompted action in neighboring Tennessee, another state hit hard by Helene. Though the tax deadline there isn't until February, lawmakers are hoping to call a special session this month to pass tax-related measures and bring some relief.

Republican state Rep. Tim Hicks supports a measure that would exempt hurricane victims from 2024 taxes. They also "won't get taxed again for those property taxes until their property is made whole again," he explained in December.

"I would think that all legislators across the state will be on board with that."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Tennesseans still on hook for state property taxes despite devastation from Hurricane Helene — at least for now



Tennesseans still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Helene will have to pay state property taxes unless lawmakers move to provide some relief.

State residents and their political leaders have been discussing the issue of property taxes for months, ever since Hurricane Helene devastated the region back in late September.

A few weeks after the storm, the IRS stepped in and postponed the deadline for filing or paying certain taxes until May 1, 2025, at least for beleaguered property and/or business owners in Carter, Claiborne, Cocke, Grainger, Greene, Hamblen, Hancock, Hawkins, Jefferson, Johnson, Sevier, Sullivan, Unicoi, and Washington Counties.

"Penalties on payroll and excise tax deposits due on or after Sept. 26, 2024, and before Oct. 11, 2024, will be abated as long as the tax deposits are made by Oct. 11, 2024," said the IRS press release issued November 7.

Leaders in Nashville have yet to officially adjust, suspend, or extend deadlines for property taxes at the state level, though at least one bill is in the works.

Republican state Rep. Tim Hicks has backed a measure that would provide tremendous relief for affected residents. If the measure becomes law, "any home or any family that was affected by the flood will be exempt from paying property taxes for the year 2024, and they won't get taxed again for those property taxes until their property is made whole again," Hicks explained, according to WCYB.

The same tax exemptions would go into effect in the case of future disasters as well.

"I would think that all legislators across the state will be on board with that," Hicks said.

'It would mean a heck of a lot. A heck of a lot.'

Hicks told WCYB that legislators, already scheduled to meet next month, intend to call a special session to vote on that and other Helene-related bills before the deadline for filing property taxes comes along in February.

"We’re trying to get all the relief efforts up here that we can."

For months, state officials have expressed concerns about the plight of storm victims in Tennessee. Back in November, Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury Jason Mumpower told WJHL that "the legislature and Gov. [Bill] Lee have a strong desire to help the property owners affected."

However, just what that "help" should look like has not yet been determined.

Some officials noted, for example, that the affected properties — most of which are located in Northeastern Tennessee — enjoyed normal value for about three-quarters of 2024 and that some owners have already paid their taxes in full. Thus, tax relief may come in the form of proration or retrospectively awarded grants, among other possibilities.

"The key to helping them is knowing exactly how much damage has occurred, what the extent of the damage [is] people have suffered to their homes, to their businesses. So we have been working with assessors since the storm occurred," Mumpower said.

"We want to be sure by the time the legislature returns in January that they have a firm understanding of the dollar amount, of the extent of the damage people have suffered so that they can provide the best assistance," he added.

For residents like David Harris and his wife, who have been living in a camper on their property in the Nolichucky River Valley between Knoxville and Winston-Salem ever since Helene wiped out their home, that relief can't come soon enough.

"It means a lot because when you lose everything, you got to replace stuff," David Harris told WCYB, "and we're retired with not such a great salary. It would mean a heck of a lot. A heck of a lot."

"We don't want to think about property taxes right now."

H/T: Matt Van Swol

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Government mix-up leads taxpaying homeowner in Chicago to have house sold from underneath her



A Chicago woman is fighting to keep her home after a government mix-up led officials to sell her house from underneath her on account of supposedly "delinquent taxes."

Robin McElroy bought her home in the Morgan Park area of Chicago back in 2012. Since then, she said she has paid the taxes owed on the property and even kept receipts of her payments.

"I do not like wasting money. ... I pay my bills," McElroy told CBS News.

Despite those consistent payments, in 2019, McElroy began receiving notices that her property taxes were in arrears and that her property was in danger of being sold.

McElroy demanded an explanation. In April 2019, she received a letter from the Cook County Treasurer's Office confirming that the county assessor's office had accidentally mixed up McElroy's property identification number — the unique 14-digit number used for tax-related purposes, according to Yahoo News — with that of her next-door neighbor.

She was then told that there were "no grounds to proceed with a sale" of her home, that the assessor's office would make an "internal correction," and that the issue would be resolved. "Don't worry about it," she recalled being told.

'I want what's rightfully owed to me.'

It turns out, McElroy still had plenty to worry about since the "internal correction" the letter promised apparently never took place. Earlier this year, she received a letter from Cook County Circuit Court informing her that her house had been "sold for delinquent taxes."

In fact, the letter added that McElroy actually owed the new homeowner three years' worth of rent. Bearing no ill will, McElroy expressed sincere concern for all the trouble that the other homeowner has had to endure as well.

"This lady should not have to be put in this position to go through all of this headache and heartache," she told CBS News. "This is stressful."

McElroy has since hired a lawyer — paid for out of pocket — to help her straighten out the problem.

CBS News has also been in contact with the assessor's office. While a spokesperson there declined an on-camera interview, the office did confirm that the property identification numbers had been corrected, that McElroy is current on her taxes, and that officials are currently working with a legal team to resolve the problem.

McElroy remains skeptical.

"You guys can point fingers all day long. I don't care," she told CBS News. "I want what's rightfully owed to me."

McElroy had a deadline earlier this month to file a response in court, the outlet added. Whether she filed that response and whether the court has issued any other rulings remain unclear.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

How Bidenomics Shattered The American Dream Of Homeownership

Under Bidenomics, owning a home is beyond the reach of many Americans due to rising associated costs.

Conservatives Beat Back Democrats’ Misleading Money Grab In Colorado

Colorado’s experience with tax-increasing Prop HH shows that conservatives can win on ballot measures if they work together.

‘Be Fruitful And Multiply’: Texas Introduces Bill That Eliminates Property Tax For Families With 10 Kids

'Get married, stay married, and be fruitful and multiply'