Man Skips Holiday Reunion Because Of Insane Tax Code
'You’re going to trip that wire'
The party that made life more expensive wants credit for noticing
Having identified a problem they created, Democrats are now blaming “affordability” on Republicans. It is a striking display of audacity — the very definition of chutzpah.
For more than a year, Democrats have struggled to find a message that resonates because they keep recycling losing ones. They have lashed out at immigration enforcement —storming ICE facilities, attacking ICE officers, and defending violent illegal aliens.
Democrats are now left with a single strategy: campaigning on the consequences of their own incompetence and hoping voters forget who caused them.
They voted for the largest tax increase in U.S. history by opposing the extension of the 2017 tax rates under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
They continue to cling to climate alarmism even as the rest of the world moves on.
They remain soft on crime, opposing President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in cities where criminals run rampant and law-abiding citizens live in fear.
And in a final act of desperation, they triggered the longest federal government shutdown in history — before caving and achieving nothing.
Same issues. Same failure to connect.
The results speak for themselves. Democrats’ favorability sits at an abysmal 32.5%, well below Republicans’ 38.2% and far below President Trump’s 43.8%.
Then came Zohran Mamdani, the neophyte New York Democratic Socialist who toppled Democrats’ old guard in consecutive elections — first Mayor Eric Adams, then former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani did what Democrats have always done: promise voters lots of free stuff. Only he did it on a far grander scale — buses, housing, child care, grocery stores.
Faced with his success, Democrats opted for the familiar response: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. They sanitized Mamdani’s socialism, rebranded it as “affordability,” and declared it their new cause.
That affordability is now Democrats’ issue should surprise no one. After all, they caused the crisis they now loudly lament.
Start with New York City, where affordability has collapsed most dramatically. According to Visual Capitalist’s ranking of America’s least affordable cities, Manhattan is No. 1, Brooklyn ranks sixth, and Queens seventh. In fact, the top 10 least affordable cities are overwhelmingly governed by Democrats and located in Democrat-dominated states: New York, Hawaii, California, and Massachusetts. By contrast, nine of the 10 most affordable cities are in Republican-dominated states.
The reasons are no mystery. They are the left’s preferred policies: high taxes that drive up the cost of living and chase out taxpayers; rent control that discourages new construction and fuels homelessness; and excessive regulation and litigation that inflate the cost of everything they touch.
The same pattern holds at the state level. U.S. News and World Report lists the 10 least affordable states, and the top six are California, New Jersey, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Washington, and New York. Nine of the 10 are blue states. Florida — the lone red-state exception — also boasts the No. 1 economy, ranks second in education, levies no state income tax, and continues to attract new residents in large numbers. Meanwhile, all 10 of the most affordable states are Republican-led.
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What about inflation? Isn’t that a national problem?
Yes, but inflation didn’t materialize out of thin air. It began under the Biden administration, reaching a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022. CPI-U inflation was just 1.4% when Biden took office in January 2021. By March, it had nearly doubled. By June, it had surged to 5.4%. By December, it hit 7%. A year later, it still stood at 6.5%. Inflation did not fall below 3% until July 2024 — the 43rd month of Biden’s presidency.
Excessive Democrat spending fueled this surge. From fiscal years 2021 through 2024, the Congressional Budget Office shows cumulative deficits of $8.9 trillion, driven by roughly $8 trillion in spending above the pre-pandemic baseline. The only reason Democrats didn’t spend more is that members of their own party balked.
Inflation works like weight gain: it comes on fast and comes off slowly. Even when the rate of inflation declines, prices remain higher. There is no economic Ozempic. Americans are still paying the price for four years of Democratic fiscal gluttony.
None of this has stopped Democrats from claiming “affordability” as their issue — or from demanding more of the same policies that caused the crisis in the first place: higher spending, higher taxes, and more regulation.
Stripped of winning ideas, Democrats are now left with a single strategy: campaigning on the consequences of their own incompetence and hoping voters forget who caused them.
Blue-state ‘Grinches’ are stealing your tax relief, says Treasury Secretary Bessent
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mocked blue-state leaders as "the Grinches Who Stole Christmas" for blocking tax relief for Americans.
On Wednesday, Bessent posted an AI-generated image of Democrat Governors Kathy Hochul of New York, Jared Polis of Colorado, and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois as grinches.
'This partisan stonewalling is a direct assault on the very families and workers liberal politicians claim to champion.'
"Thanks to @POTUS, 'tis the season to be jolly — unless you're a taxpayer in New York, Colorado, Illinois, or the District of Columbia," Bessent wrote. "For millions of hardworking Americans, @GovKathyHochul, @GovofCO @jaredpolis, and @GovPritzker are The Grinches Who Stole Christmas."
"Courtesy of their Scrooge-like tendencies, America's seniors, along with all workers who would benefit from No Tax on Tips and No Tax on Overtime, will be robbed of the tax relief they deserve," Bessent continued. "The Christmas season should be a time of great cheer. But due to the Trump Derangement Syndrome of these Governors and other radical leftists, too many low- and middle-income households will receive nothing but coal in their state tax stockings."
President Donald Trump's July 4 bill eliminates taxes on tips for service-industry workers and on overtime for linemen and factory workers. It also provides a tax deduction for seniors receiving Social Security.
A Wednesday press release from the Treasury Department accused the Democrat leaders of "political obstructionism" for "deliberately blocking their own residents from receiving these historic benefits at the state level."
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"This partisan stonewalling is a direct assault on the very families and workers liberal politicians claim to champion. By denying their residents access to these important tax cuts, these governors and legislators are forcing hardworking Americans to shoulder higher state tax burdens, robbing them of the relief they deserve and exacerbating the financial squeeze on low- and middle-income households," the department's press release read.
States are not required to adhere to all federal tax provisions. New York is introducing new codes to its tax form, requiring residents to pay taxes on tips and overtime. Colorado plans to require residents to report the amount of overtime pay that was deducted federally and then add it back for state tax purposes. Illinois is expected to adopt similar updates to its tax form to add pay deducted federally.
New York has been ranked the worst state in the country for taxes. The state's overall tax burden is estimated at 12.02%, while Illinois' is 9.67% and Colorado's is 8.42%.
Polis responded to Bessent's comments in a post on X, claiming that Colorado has reduced taxes.
"Colorado has cut our income tax three times, and unlike these measures in Trump's law, those cuts are permanent," Polis wrote. "While the Secretary is supporting Trump's tariff taxes, we are delivering real relief through the most generous child tax credit in the nation and cutting poverty. Spend less time talking about tips, which Colorado conforms to and won't be subject to state or federal income tax up to the level designated in HR1 and instead focus on lowering interest rates, costs and bringing down the price of goods ahead of Christmas by eliminating these draconian tariffs. Happy holidays, Secretary — may your stockings be full of facts, not coal."
In response to Bessent's post, Hochul wrote, "Remarkable that an office once held by Alexander Hamilton is now tweeting Grinch fanfic at governors."
Pritzker's office did not respond to a request for comment.
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Meta retreats in Washington as socialist Democrat brandishes new corporate tax hikes
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has narrowly avoided a costly disaster.
When Meta bought the rights to more land in Bellevue, Washington, in 2020, it brought the company's potential footprint in the area up to more than 3 million square feet. After five years of expansions, subleases, and plan changes, Zuckerberg's company had to decide if it wanted to dive fully into the expansion it was offered or stay with what it had.
'The way for Washingtonians to fight back is to build a bolder Washington.'
Newly released details about Meta's plans in Bellevue’s Spring District now confirm that the tech company has avoided disaster by about a month. As reported by Downtown Bellevue, Meta is returning the rights for several blocks in the district to developer Wright Runstad & Co., which is considered turning the land into apartment buildings, instead of offices.
With Meta using only around 700,000 square feet of its current land leases, the relinquishment comes on the cusp of massive new corporate taxes that seem to be on the horizon from a state Democrat, who is openly socialist.
State Rep. Shaun Scott (D) hopes to counteract tax cuts by the Trump administration by issuing a new corporate payroll tax that will affect the largest companies in the state, including Amazon, Microsoft, and, of course, Meta.
Scott is a Democratic Socialist, according to a report by Axios, and is certainly living up to the "socialist" part of his title with the new 5% tax.
His proposal would tax private companies where employees earn more than $125,000 per year, with the new tax applying to salaries above that threshold. Any company with more than 50 employees, a payroll in excess of $7 million, and gross receipts over $5 million will also be taxed.
The tax would raise $5.5 billion over two years, according to Komo News.
The tax reportedly comes in direct response to money lost from the Republicans' H.R.1, aka the Big Beautiful Bill Act, which claimed from the outset that it would "reduces taxes."
Scott is, in effect, proving the bill to be true with his proposal.
"The way for Washingtonians to fight back is to build a bolder Washington: a Washington that defends the programs that people depend on, while the other Washington defunds them," he said, according to the Olympian.
The bill would take effect on July 1, 2026.
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Why the laws of government physics remain undefeated
In an age when government grows with the regularity of the sunrise and the humility of a bonfire, Dan Mitchell’s “20 Theorems of Government” land not as abstractions but as reminders of truths America’s founders understood almost instinctively. The theorems, devised by the co-founder of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, capture the recurring failures of centralized authority and the virtues of free people operating in free markets.
These theorems are not predictions. They are explanations of what government always does when left unchecked and how society always suffers when the state’s reach exceeds the citizen’s grasp.
The problem is not the quality of the people in government. The problem is the nature of government itself.
Mitchell’s First Theorem, which describes how Washington actually functions, could be carved above every federal agency door. Politics rewards the spending of other people’s money for other people’s benefit. The entire system is designed to avoid accountability and to maximize political reward. Once you accept that incentives drive outcomes, the rest of the theorems follow naturally.
The Second and Third Theorems make this point bluntly. Any new program will grow, metastasize, and waste money. Centralization magnifies inefficiency because bureaucracies face no competition, no profit-and-loss constraint, and no personal consequences for failure. When the private sector gets something wrong, it pays for its mistake. When government gets something wrong, it demands a larger budget.
Theorems Four through Seven widen the gap between political rhetoric and economic reality. Good policy can be good politics, but incentives push politicians toward superficial fixes and short-term gratification. Even strong ideas rot inside bureaucratic execution. And the larger the government becomes, the more incompetent and unresponsive it grows. Bureaucrats answer to political pressure, not consumer choice, and the results are inevitable: waste, rigidity, and indifference.
The Eighth through 10th Theorems confront the moral dimension of government overreach. Politicians who obsess over inequality rarely seek to lift up the poor; they seek justification for more control. Crises — real or imaginary — become tools for expanding that control. And politics almost always overwhelms principle. This is not cynicism. It is observation backed by centuries of evidence.
Theorems 11 through 15 dismantle common misconceptions. Big business is not the same thing as free enterprise. In many cases, it is free enterprise’s most persistent enemy. Corporations often work hand in hand with government to protect themselves from competition. Meanwhile, anyone who opposes entitlement reform is endorsing massive, broad-based tax hikes, because arithmetic leaves no other option. You cannot fund European-style welfare states without European-style taxation. And history shows voters resist paying for the bloated government they claim to want.
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This leads naturally to the 16th and 17th Theorems. Economic progress becomes a race between private innovation and public consumption. When government grows faster than the private sector can produce, stagnation follows. Worse, when dependency becomes a norm, the cultural foundations of liberty erode. A nation that forgets how to rely on itself cannot long remain free.
The final three theorems complete the picture. Climate policy becomes hypocrisy when elites demand sacrifice from others while refusing it themselves. Politicians operate under incentives that reward short-term benefit at long-term cost. And the fiscal results — from rising deficits to ever-multiplying promises — are exactly what those incentives predict.
Taken together, Mitchell’s 20 Theorems point to a conclusion Milton Friedman drew decades ago: The problem is not the quality of the people in government; the problem is the nature of government itself. A government that grows without limit will, eventually and inevitably, burden the citizens it claims to serve.
If Americans wish to preserve both prosperity and freedom, they will have to internalize these theorems as practical truths, not relics of libertarian theory. The path forward is not mysterious. Limit government. Unleash markets. These principles are old — and their urgency has never been greater.
How Florida Can Reform Property Taxes To Incentivize Young Families
States need not punish seniors, but tax policies must be structured in such a way so as not to freeze younger generations out of the market.The cost-of-living panic sparks a bipartisan rush to bad ideas
Welcome to Sesame Street. The word of the day is “affordability.”
Democrats have treated it as a magic spell ever since their 2024 collapse drove the party’s approval to historic lows. New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and governors-elect Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey ran very different races, yet all credited their wins to a relentless focus on the cost of living. Mamdani in particular used the term like an incantation to bury a record full of extremist statements and friendly nods toward terrorist movements.
Turning ‘affordability’ into a political idol guarantees policies that cannibalize the future.
Democrats also see the “affordability” push as an opportunity to turn Republicans’ most effective weapon against them. Joe Biden’s low approval ratings on the economy dogged him throughout his entire term, and his constant insistence that things were improving did not cut the (suddenly expensive) mustard.
Republican anxiety grows
On his first day back in office, Donald Trump ordered “all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief.” But Democrats’ stronger-than-expected showing in the 2025 elections has GOP strategists wondering whether that relief is moving too slowly to blunt the message.
Trump, who dominated the 2024 campaign by hammering prices, sounds irritated that his best issue has turned into a liability. He avoids the word “affordability,” though it has begun sneaking into his teleprompter.
“We’re making incredible strides to Make America Affordable Again,” he told the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum. “Democrats had the worst inflation in history. They had the highest prices in history. The country was going to hell. ... We’re bringing prices down.”
A political arms race
Both parties now talk about the cost of living as their top priority, and struggling families need the attention. But a politics built around “affordability” can easily turn into a race to the bottom — an auction of quick fixes that burn next year’s seed corn for a bump in the polls.
Plenty of shortcuts tempt politicians. Mamdani floated the most obvious one: freezing rents across one million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City. If he pulls it off — a big “if” — tenants will enjoy short-term relief. Yet the move will also choke new construction and allow existing homes to deteriorate as landlords lose the revenue needed to maintain them.
Beware of quick fixes
Even Republicans flirt with shortcuts. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) teamed up on a bill capping credit-card interest rates at 10%. Cheaper interest sounds great until you follow the consequences. A hard cap would force lenders to reject more applications, denying low-income Americans the credit they often need to escape poverty or cover emergencies.
Republicans face their own affordability temptation as well. AI data centers, which consume enormous amounts of power, are driving up electric bills faster than increased energy production can offset. Slowing or freezing data-center construction could save households money for a year or two. It would also cripple America’s position in the AI race with China and cost the country trillions of dollars in long-term economic growth.
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Tariffs under fire
Trump’s tariffs have become a favorite target for Democrats claiming to champion affordability. The administration recently eased tariffs on food imports such as bananas and coffee. But gutting the entire tariff regime — if the Supreme Court allows it to remain in place — would be a profound mistake.
Tariffs have pushed some prices upward, but the Harvard Business School tariff tracker estimates that only 20% of tariff costs reach consumers. Foreign companies and foreign governments absorb the rest.
Meanwhile, tariff revenue strengthens the government’s financial footing, and trillions of dollars in investment continue to flow into new and expanded U.S. manufacturing. Reverting to the failed neoliberal free-trade dogma in the name of “affordability” might give politicians a quick approval boost. It would gut the industrial base, weaken the budget, and destroy the very blue-collar jobs voters were promised.
Our marshmallow test
Blaming the other party for rising prices works because it taps into real pain. But it also encourages the kind of policymaking you would expect from the child in the famous experiment who couldn’t wait 15 minutes for a second marshmallow. He ate the first one instantly and lost the reward.
The cost of living in America (to say nothing of thriving) is far too high. Families need real relief. But turning “affordability” into a political idol guarantees policies that cannibalize the future. Prosperity demands discipline. A country that chases quick fixes will never escape its long-term economic traps.
An Illegal Alien Stole An American’s Identity For 15 Years. NYT Says He’s A Victim Too
Every fact in the story underscores the massive cost and toll of illegal immigration.Is a tariff a tax?
Is a tariff a tax? Many Americans have forgotten that this question, which has been in the news more or less all year, was fundamental to the American Revolution. And among American Patriots, or Whigs, meaning those who supported the colonists’ claims against Parliament, there was almost universal consensus that they were different things, constitutionally speaking.
Throughout the Imperial Crisis of 1763 to 1776, the consensus among the colonists was that Parliament had the right to regulate trade in the British Empire but had no right to tax the colonists. And they recognized that a regulation of trade might take the form of a duty imposed upon, for example, molasses imported from French colonies to favor molasses imported from British colonies.
The founding generation believed in the separation of powers.
In the colonists’ view, the Sugar Act of 1764 was an unconstitutional innovation. The Act was quite explicit, stating at the top that it was passed for the purpose of “applying the produce of such duties, and of the duties to arise by virtue of the said act, towards defraying the expences of defending, protecting, and securing the said colonies and plantations.” It was the first trade act to do that.
Townshend’s overreach
The Stamp Act of 1765, and the reaction to it, made the protest against the 1764 Sugar Act less conspicuous. The result of the actions taken against the Stamp Act was that many in Parliament did not grasp the American argument against the Sugar Act. Hence, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts in 1767, imposing duties on lead, glass, paper, paint, and tea to raise revenue. When the colonists complained, many in Parliament accused the colonists of moving the goalposts.
The charge was not accurate, but it did reflect what they believed. And, like many today, many members of Parliament were unable to grasp the difference between a duty imposed for the purpose of trade regulation and a duty imposed for the purpose of raising revenue.
The most famous criticism of the Townshend Acts, and the most popular writing of the era until Thomas Paine published “Common Sense” in January 1776, was John Dickinson’s “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania.” In the second letter, Dickinson made the consensus Patriot argument logically, clearly, and eloquently.
There is another late act of parliament, which appears to me to be unconstitutional, and as destructive to the liberty of these colonies, as that mentioned in my last letter; that is, the act for granting the duties on paper, glass, etc.
The parliament unquestionably possesses a legal authority to regulate the trade of Great Britain, and all her colonies. Such an authority is essential to the relation between a mother country and her colonies; and necessary for the common good of all ...
I have looked over every statute relating to these colonies, from their first settlement to this time; and I find every one of them founded on this principle, till the Stamp Act administration.* All before, are calculated to regulate trade, and preserve or promote a mutually beneficial intercourse between the several constituent parts of the empire. ... The raising of a revenue thereby was never intended. ... Never did the British parliament, till the period above mentioned, think of imposing duties in America for the purpose of raising a revenue. ...
Here we may observe an authority expressly claimed and exerted to impose duties on these colonies; not for the regulation of trade; not for the preservation or promotion of a mutually beneficial intercourse between the several constituent parts of the empire, heretofore the sole objects of parliamentary institutions; but for the single purpose of levying money upon us.
This I call an innovation; and a most dangerous innovation.* It may perhaps be objected, that Great Britain has a right to lay what duties she pleases upon her exports.
That so many people today don’t seem to understand this distinction is a sign that the American bar seems to have gone Tory. The founding generation’s way of thinking about tariffs, and perhaps law in general, is in danger of being rendered foreign to our public policy discussion, perhaps even to constitutional discussion, even among people who mistakenly think of themselves as originalists.
This way of thinking, of course, says little about the current case, as the purpose of the law itself must be understood in light of the thinking of the men who passed it. But it is also true that the way of thinking that Dickinson represented, and which was broadly shared in the founding generation, might have something to say here.
Delegation’s limits
The founding generation believed in the separation of powers. The founders recognized, as “The Federalist” notes, that in practice the powers will inevitably overlap and sometimes clash. But they did operate within a way of legal and constitutional thinking that took it as a given that in order to guard the separation of powers, any delegation of legislative powers to the executive had to be limited and focused.
There is a difference between a reasonable and an unreasonable delegation of powers, just as there is between a tax and a regulation of trade, even if, in both cases, money is raised at customs houses. The kind of delegation the Trump administration is asserting in this case is difficult, perhaps impossible, to reconcile with the practice of separation of powers. Congress has no right to abdicate its obligation to set trade policy via legislation.
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The Trump administration’s assertion that it has the right to set tariffs worldwide, claiming unlimited emergency power based on a law designed to delegate to the president a narrow emergency power, resembles the kind of expansive, arbitrary interpretation that the founders’ legal heroes fought.
In the 1630s, King Charles claimed the right to collect “ship money” throughout England. By tradition, the king had the right to raise money, without Parliament’s consent, in port towns in time of war, or if war was imminent.
King Charles asserted a living constitution interpretation: Given modern circumstances, he claimed a general right to raise taxes if a war emergency was imminent. Dickinson mentioned the case in the first Farmer’s Letters, suggesting there was a connection between the logic of the one argument and the other.
Our difficulty recognizing the limits of the nondelegation doctrine — and our confusion about the difference between a duty imposed to raise revenue and one imposed to regulate trade — shows how much work remains if we want to understand the Constitution as the framers did. That understanding requires grappling with the ideas about human nature, government, and law that justified ratification in the first place and that still anchor our constitutional order.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
Big Tech’s AI boom hits voters hard — and Democrats pounce
Wouldn’t it be a bitter irony if Republicans lost the midterms — maybe even in conservative red states — because Democrats outmaneuvered them on the dangers of the AI data-center boom? The left now warns voters about land seizures, rising electric bills, water shortages, and Big Tech’s unchecked power. Meanwhile, Republicans stay quiet as Trump himself champions the very agenda voters increasingly fear.
During the Biden years, Republicans attacked Big Tech censorship, digital surveillance, Agenda 2030 land-grabs, and the artificial online culture reshaping young Americans. Every one of those concerns now intersects with the data-center explosion — energy demands, land use, power monopolies, and the rise of generative AI — but the political right barely whispers about it.
Republicans can channel AI toward focused, beneficial uses and away from a dystopian model that erodes civic life. Voters already want that shift.
Democrats don’t make that mistake. They see a potent electoral weapon.
Georgia hadn’t elected a Democrat statewide since 2006. Yet Democrat Peter Hubbard defeated a Republican incumbent on the Public Service Commission by 26 points by hammering “sweetheart deals” GOP officials granted hyperscale data centers. Voters in the state face repeated rate hikes linked to the massive energy demands of Big Tech facilities.
“The number-one issue was affordability,” Hubbard told Wired. “But a very close second was data centers and the concern around them just sucking up the water, the electricity, the land — and not really paying any taxes.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. In 2022, Georgia’s Republican legislature passed a sales-tax exemption for data centers. In 2024, a bipartisan bill attempted to halt those tax breaks, but Gov. Brian Kemp (R) vetoed it. Voters noticed — and punished the GOP for it.
Georgia now surpasses northern Virginia in hyperscale growth. Atlanta’s data-center inventory rose 222% in two years, with more than 2,150 megawatts of new construction under way. It’s no mystery why Democrats flipped two PSC seats in blowouts.
Republicans lost because they defended crony capitalism that inflated energy bills, devoured land, and fed an AI industry conservatives once warned about. If Kamala Harris had pushed the data-center agenda as aggressively as Trump now does, Republicans would be in open revolt. But Trump’s support silences the conservative grassroots and leaves Democrats free to define the issue.
Virginia tells the same story. Democrat John McAuliff flipped a GOP seat by attacking Big Tech’s land-grab and the rising utility costs tied to data-center expansion. He blasted his opponent for profiting while family farms vanished under the footprint of hyperscale development. He became the first Democrat in 30 years to carry the district.
At the statewide level, Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the governor’s office by arguing that AI data centers must pay their “fair share” of soaring energy costs. She framed the issue as a fight to protect families from Big Tech’s strain on the grid.
New Jersey voters heard similar warnings as they faced a 22% electric rate increase. Democrat Mikie Sherrill defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli by double digits after blaming part of the spike on hyperscale energy demand. She pledged to declare a state of emergency to halt increases and require data centers to fund grid upgrades.
This pattern repeats in reliably red states.
Indiana saw dozens of new hyperscale proposals, yet not a single Republican official pushed back. Ordinary citizens blocked one of Google’s planned rezonings near Indianapolis. Liberal groups — like Citizens Action Coalition — filled the leadership vacuum and demanded a moratorium on new data centers, calling it a fight against “big tech oligarchs that are calling all the shots at every single level of government.”
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Republican leaders, meanwhile, worked to ban states from regulating AI at all. This summer they attempted to insert a sweeping prohibition into the budget reconciliation bill that would bar states from regulating data-center siting or AI content for 10 years. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) now seeks to attach the same language to the FY 2026 defense authorization act. President Trump backs the provision.
Instead of ceding the issue to the left, Republicans should correct course. They can channel AI toward focused, beneficial uses and away from a dystopian model that erodes civic life. Voters already want that shift. A new University of Maryland poll found residents believe — by a 2-1 margin — that AI will harm society more than it helps. More than 80% expressed deep concern about declining face-to-face interaction, the erosion of education and critical thinking, and job displacement fueled by AI.
Capital expenditures cannot sustain the current pace of expansion, and public patience with Big Tech’s demands is running out. The political party that recognizes these realities first will earn the credit. Right now, the party that once defended property rights, community values, and human-centered technology is getting lapped by the party that partnered with Big Tech oligarchs to censor Americans during COVID.
Republicans still have time to lead. But they won’t win a fight they refuse to join.
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