The data center boom comes to Kansas — and someone will pay for it

Politico reports that data center development has become a live grenade in Kansas's governor's race, with Republican and Democratic rivals trading blows over who offered too much and who offered too little to court these vast facilities. I confess I know nothing of the internal machinery of these establishments — they were not among the concerns of my printing house in Philadelphia. But I know a public subsidy when I smell one, and I know that every grant of special advantage to one enterprise is a quiet tax on every enterprise that receives none.

The pattern is familiar enough to require no modern expertise to read. A large concern arrives at the seat of government. It promises employment and modernity and the prestige of being called a forward-looking state. In return it requests — initially — a modest accommodation: perhaps a favorable rate on the power it will consume in quantities that would stagger a colonial ironworks, perhaps a forgiveness of property tax for a term of years, perhaps an infrastructure investment at public expense. The legislature, eager to cut the ribbon, obliges. The working farmer whose grain elevator pays full freight on its electricity bill is not at the table.

This is not an argument against data centers, any more than I argued against paper mills. Commerce is a civilizing force, and I spent my working life in its service. The question is the terms of the bargain. Politico's account (inference on my part, since I work only from the lead) suggests that both parties are attacking each other's positions rather than defending the public's interest in a transparent accounting. That is the oldest evasion in politics: make the argument about your opponent's motive and the public never learns the actual ledger.

I learned in Pennsylvania what happens when a legislature courts one class of investor with privileges unavailable to the rest. The favored party grows comfortable; the unfavored party grows resentful; and the government, having spent its credibility on the ribbon-cutting, finds it has little left when the promises come due thin. Sound public investment resembles sound paper money: it must be secured by something real — genuine employment, genuine tax revenue net of concession, genuine power infrastructure that does not degrade service for existing ratepayers.

The right question for any Kansas voter — and I offer this as the counsel a working person might actually use — is not which candidate likes data centers more, but which candidate will publish the full accounting before the deal is signed: the tax abatements, the power-rate arrangements, the infrastructure commitments, and the clawback provisions if the promised jobs do not appear. A bargain that cannot survive public inspection before signing will not improve upon inspection afterward. Demand the ledger. That is civic virtue in its most practical form.