(The Center Square) – Charlie Berens knows that not everyone agrees with him on data centers.
But the Wisconsin comedian also knows that a lot of people do.
He’s read the polls, he’s done the research and last weekend he was the keynote speaker at the United West Wisconsin regional response to data centers in Eau Claire, attempting to bring the communities together for a common cause.
“I would love to stick with comedy,” Berens told the crowd. “I will stick with comedy as soon as our politicians stick with policy and stop protecting big tech and start protecting the people who put them into office.”
Berens wasn’t the only speaker or only comedian at the event. But he was the most well-known as he followed up speakers like Ed Gorell of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, who said that his group is opposed to allowing data centers to increase local electricity rates, contaminate local water supplies and increase local tax burdens or those that are built on prime farm land.
Gorell went on to list tax increment districts and overuse of the term blight to give data centers breaks that other businesses don’t receive.
Berens cited the recent Marquette Law School poll, which showed that 69% of voters believe the costs of data centers are greater and 30% believing that the benefits are higher.
The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll, released Tuesday, found that 62% of voters believe local governments should be cautious while 24% believe that they should encourage new data centers because they create jobs, tax revenue, and support America’s digital economy.
The poll asked voters if they believed data centers can place strain on electricity, water, land and local infrastructure.
A report earlier this year from the American Energy Institute showed that foreign billionaires have provided funding upwards of $39 million to the anti-AI data center movement in the United States, something that Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, told The Center Square earlier this year showed that data center opposition is not “organic or purely local” and that transparency matters with what the report showed.
In Wisconsin, however, opposition has grown related to the four largest projects in the state.
A report earlier this year from Wisconsin’s Legislative Audit Bureau showed that the state will forego $1.5 billion in sales tax to four data center projects in initial construction and then $369 million more annually once the projects are completed.
Wisconsin’s exemption, enacted in the 2023-25 budget, applies to everything from property purchases to computer servers and energy systems at the site to electricity and cooling systems.
The exemptions apply to Microsoft’s $20.6 billion in data centers in Wisconsin along with OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage Data Centers’ $15 billion in data center in Port Washington. Epic Hosting’s $347 million project in Verona and Meta’s $1 billion project in Beaver Dam are also included.
Berens told the crowd that the largest threat to big tech and AI is the organic movement against data centers, because it’s the one thing he believes they can’t buy. He believes that Wisconsin and the federal government need to enact legislation that data centers must follow because “there are more regulations on a bratwurst than the entire artificial intelligence industry.”
“Our politicians have failed us,” Berens said. “They left Madison without passing anything. Could you imagine getting paid to do some work and you show up for work and you leave without doing your job?”
Wisconsin congressman and leading Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany has said that he will end tax breaks for data centers if he is elected governor.
Metro Milwaukee Association of Commerce President Dale Kooyenga, however, has advocated for the continued use of data center sales tax exemptions in Wisconsin, saying that construction workers on the projects are paying income and property taxes that exceed the value of the sales tax exemptions and the projects would not come to the state without the sales tax break.
“As a CPA, it is not a ‘cost’ if you never had the revenue or expense,” Kooyenga wrote. “There is no hole in the budget; in fact, there are more state resources because the policy brought economic activity to WI, and an existing funding stream or expenditure didn’t have to be cut.
“Ratepayers will not subsidize electrical rates, property taxpayers do not subsidize TIFs and a sales tax exemption does not mean that this is ‘costing’ WI taxpayers.”