If they are willing to spend 35B there's no doubt they could spend 30B without asking the government to reach into the people's wallet.
The US needs to do something about lobbying. It seems too late already, but maybe you can get things to improve a bit.
It's tempting to blame any political outcome you don't like on lobbying. It allows you to believe that almost no one supports the outcome that you don't like, because you can blame it on politicians manage to be bought by a small number of lobbyists. But it might not be the case. Several states (I believe Texas, Georgia, and Indiana) don't charge sales tax to data centers. So from Louisiana's perspective, the alternative to the tax break might not be $3B in tax revenue, but $0 (as Meta would simply build elsewhere). I'm sure they still plan to collect income taxes for the temporary jobs created for the construction of the data center, and of the permanent jobs required to maintain it.
If states all worked together, they could plausibly prevent this race to the bottom by agreeing on a universal sales tax minimum, but there are many obstacles to that as well besides some vague sense of "lobbying". You'd want all states to work cooperate on their minimum tax, but every state has a big incentive to break from the cartel and offer lower taxes in exchange for getting all the datacenters built there. There are lobbyists who are working against this, but it's not just meta and google, it's also local utility companies and construction/trade unions (who all want their state to defect and be the one to get all the new money and jobs)
Well said: why does a tax break bother people so much? That feels pretty populist to me: data centers of this magnitude offer a ton of economic benefits to the area and the state, 3.3B in tax breaks are the price to pay to incentivize them to bring the business to the area, which will then provide a net positive financial benefit. I can see plenty of problems with data center construction that should definitely be addressed, but why do you think states offer such huge incentives?
> Well said: why does a tax break bother people so much?
Because it's their money being handed to a trillion dollar company that has no need for a discount?
A tax break isn't handing anyone money.
Sure it is. It's more money in Facebook's pocket, and less in the local coffers. Either services get cut, or residents pay more.
If the IRS gives me a 10% tax break, I have more money, and the government has less, right?
But it's not less in local coffers. If the incentive was not given, the datacenter would not be built there. The state government wants it to be built there to increase economic activity in their state.
Residents aren't paying more for anything and no services are being cut.
> But it's not less in local coffers.
The local government is giving a local tax break, which comes out of their local tax revenue.
> If the incentive was not given, the datacenter would not be built there.
Objection, your honor, assuming facts not in evidence!
(Nor are the incentives any sort of guarantee. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/foxconn-mostly-abandons-10-b...)
> Residents aren't paying more for anything and no services are being cut.
They are receiving less tax revenue than they would have otherwise had to use on their services.
You are assuming the datacenter would be built there without the incentive. That is highly unlikely.
Yes, I'm assuming Facebook still needs the datacenter, and that the company that wasted $80B on the Metaverse can pay some taxes.
There are 50 states in the US and plenty of other locations to build datacenters. "Still needing the datacenter" isn't a reason to build it in this specific location. It's ok to just admit you were wrong.
> There are 50 states in the US and plenty of other locations to build datacenters.
Yes, and we should ban them from issuing these sorts of race-to-the-bottom sweetheart deal at taxpayer expense to trillion dollar corporations to address that.
I find it bothersome because the system incentivizes giant megacorp monopolies. If you are small you'll have to pay taxes like everyone else, but once you hit some threshold of huge enough, we'll let taxes slide so you can get another leg up. A datacenter this size isn't going to provide more economic benefit than 50 datacenters 1/50 the size, but only one of them gets special treatment.
Combine that with the fact that large corporations constantly find ways to avoid paying taxes and its hard to be positive about this kind of thing.
Long-term tax-breaks for something like a factory, which will ideally employ hundreds or thousands of people for a very long time? That can make sense. There's a lasting, local benefit, and that benefit can stand some encouragement. Real, local people will have real, local jobs. It can be good.
Datacenters aren't like that. There's a huge construction phase where billions of dollars get spent followed by dozens of long-term employees. The local benefit is mostly just a flash in a pan while the tax break lasts for decades.
Besides, it seems that datacenters are universally unliked by constituents in areas where they pop up. This makes arguments for tax breaks for datacenters seem illogical, at best.
Unilaterally, these favorable arguments come down to something like: "Well, if they didn't offer the tax break here, then Metazonaigoog will just build their new datacenter somewhere else instead!"
To which I can only retort: "Really? You promise? Don't threaten me with a good time -- go ahead and build it somewhere else."
> Well said: why does a tax break bother people so much?
Several reasons. It distorts the market for one. One tax rate for me, another for thee. That's government picking favorites. Generally regarded as a bad thing.
The entire tax code is full of these. For corporations and individuals as well. Are you advocating for a flat tax?
I'll bite. What's the downside of a flat tax for a category like datacenters? If Meta want's to negotiate a lower tax rate for datacenters that's great, just allow every datacenter to apply for that same rate then.
Because its my money, paid to rich people, to make them richer. There's no obvious "net positive financial benefit" in many of these situations, and even if there was the impact they make is not just in financials, but in utility management, environmental management, etc - its not just a magic number go up.
It's not your money. Tax breaks are no ones money. No money is being sent for a tax break.
>data centers of this magnitude offer a ton of economic benefits to the area and the state
I have only seen this point being brought up by the exact people that will be owning the data centers with little data to back it up besides temporary construction jobs and few long term jobs, most jobs likely imported and not local.
I think states are offering huge incentives because the politicians approving the construction and tax cuts are easily bought out for pennies on the dollar. I don't know if Louisiana is known for being a paragon of honest politicians doing right by their constituents.
It wouldn't be a problem if 1) people get a say in the matter and 2) those tax breaks don't require increasing taxes else where. So far with all the data centers built that does not seem to be the case.
"If states all worked together, they could plausibly prevent this race to the bottom by agreeing on a universal sales tax minimum"
The states, under Trump, are all working together to ensure a race to the bottom happens, both in the U.S. and abroad.
One hundred and thirty five nations worked together to create a minimum corporate tax rate called "Pillar Two". It would have factored in tax breaks for projects like this by calculating an effective tax rate for Meta, and mandated higher taxes if the effective rate was too low. Trump withdrew the U.S. from that effort and created a framework to retaliate if other countries upheld Pillar Two to raise taxes on American megacorps[1] in their jurisdictions.
____
[1]https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2025/how-us-mu...
Well, now you see the issue. It only takes one hold-out for the plan to fail. The federal government could pass a law to at least ban it within the US, but the federal government can't seem to pass any laws right now.
It's funny that the US still uses the word lobbying. At this point this has been corruption for years now. Corruption in the US is rampant
Yup, lobbying is a made-up integrity-washing concept after all
Do you have evidence that lobbying is what produced this outcome?
Please don’t do that.
How dare he ask for evidence!
This poster likes to demand evidence of others (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48135626) and bristle when the same standard is applied to them (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48137932).
Someone else did provide evidence, though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48153756
> someone else did provide evidence
Some 16 minutes after he asked the question, so that's not an excuse for criticism of the question.
In what way did I bristle?
Asking for evidence of claims is very offensive to those who don’t have any.
They feel very strongly about a topic, but it’s entirely based on their various personal experiences. They arrive at the conclusion first, and then try to arrange reality around their opinions.
It’s the phrasing/tone. It’s such a red flag.
As to his being answered: somebody responding to him in good faith does not suddenly validate what he was doing.
There was nothing wrong or offensive with my phrasing.
I'm surprised that your comment is dead. Apparently there was evidence (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48153756), so I don't see the problem with having asked.
It’s surprising to me as well. Such an innocuous question. Don’t fully understand why people found it offensive enough to flag.