by Jordan Schachtel
The American left wants to stop the buildout of American technological infrastructure. And some Republicans are taking the bait.
From the far left to the Democrat establishment, they’re going full steam ahead with the ban hammer. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are trying to freeze new AI data center construction nationwide until Congress passes a crippling regulatory regime. They are but two of the top Democrats calling for a national moratorium. This week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an order restricting data centers in his state.
It’s no secret that data centers have become a polarizing issue, but poll-obsessed politicians have only poured fuel on the fire by leaning into the hysteria of the day.
Yet the benefits and costs of data centers fall very differently on Republicans and Democrats. The vast majority of the modern buildout is happening in red states.
Texas leads America in data center construction, with more than 140 facilities under construction. Purple Virginia comes in second at 136, followed by Georgia at 56 and Ohio at 51. Texas now has the largest total pipeline in the nation, with more than 900 sites operating, under construction, or announced, and industry forecasts project that Texas alone will capture nearly 30 percent of U.S. market share by 2028.
The largest data center operators are on pace to deploy roughly $750 billion in capital this year, up from around $450 billion last year. The AI capex boom is contributing significantly to U.S. GDP, and it’s driven largely by consumer demand. We are witnessing the largest private construction wave in modern American history, and most of it is being built in red states.
Putting the hysterical propaganda aside, the buildout has big benefits for local communities.
In Richland Parish, Louisiana, tax revenue from Meta’s campus let the school system hand out teacher bonuses as high as $50,000. In Saline Township, Michigan, the incoming project is projected to send $26 million a year to the schools and $10 million to the township. In Ellendale, North Dakota, hundreds of new jobs and millions in tax revenue have flowed into the area. In Loudoun County, Virginia, data centers now account for close to half the property tax base.
Data centers are creating enormous numbers of temporary but lucrative blue-collar jobs during the construction and operations phases. It’s also true that the permanent headcount is more modest. Nonetheless, the immense value comes from the tax revenue these facilities generate. And again, these developments mostly benefit places where Republican voters live.
Thanks to President Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, more and more localities are ensuring that the electricity demands of data centers are not driving up utility bills for everyday American households and businesses. These buildouts are either supplying their own power or ensuring that any additional cost burden is accounted for internally.
Sadly, there are now more than 200 local moratoriums in the United States. But the money behind the blocked projects did not evaporate. It’s not as though the hyperscalers and data center operators are going to wait around forever. They are simply going to take their business elsewhere. And if Republicans take the bait and end up making it impossible for these operators to build anywhere in America, they will deal a serious blow to economic opportunity in the United States.
Republicans who vote to ban AI data centers are not doing anything moral. They are harming opportunities for their own constituents and transferring economic opportunity somewhere else. Politicians who stand in the way are not defending some kind of constitutional principle; they are merely leaning into baseless hysteria. They are delivering on the far left’s preferred outcome: a slower, poorer, less competitive United States.
Let’s not lose out on economic opportunity because Republicans got bamboozled by Bernie Sanders, AOC, and a foreign psyop designed to thwart American innovation.
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Jordan Schachtel is an independent journalist who covers AI, tech, and world politics, and he’s the publisher of The Dossier on Substack.
Photo “Anti-Data Centers” by Catboy69. CC BY 4.0.
