Ohio’s Tax Shell Game: DeWine, Vivek, and the AI Power Grab Coming for Your Lights
By Anonymous Lake County Resident
Governor Mike DeWine hands Meta an estimated $20-25 million via a 15-year, 75% property tax break for its $800 million Bowling Green data center. Schools—eating 60% of Ohio’s property taxes—bleed first. Firefighters, cops, EMS, and road crews split the 10-15% scraps, watching millions vanish. Millage rates spike, hammering your home, your deli, the mechanic assessed at $20,000. They cover Meta’s tab. DeWine calls it jobs. It’s blackmail with confetti.
Enter Vivek Ramaswamy, biotech bro turned governor wannabe, crowned by Ohio Republicans—60 to 3—in May 2025, nine months before the May ’26 primary. No debates, just Trump’s nod and party boss Bob Paduchik sidelining Dave Yost, spitting on voters. Vivek’s zero income tax plan? Wipes $10 billion yearly—up to 20,000 teachers fired, 500 schools cutting sports, Toledo already down $12 million from abatements like Meta’s. His Roivant Sciences dodged taxes via Bermuda; now he wants Ohio as his tax- free lab, shielding biotech pals while your kid’s school drops math.
Donors cheer: Jeff Yass pumps $10 million into Vivek’s super PAC. Yass owns stakes in cloud giants fueling data centers—the ones DeWine courts with tax breaks. DeWine gives Meta land; Vivek gives Yass a tax wipeout. HB 96’s 2.75% flat tax bleeds $1.1 billion yearly, plus a $250,000 LLC deduction—another $1 billion gift to lawyers, doctors, Roivant execs who zero out taxes, paying pennies on leftovers. DeWine’s campaign? Millions from tech and real estate LLCs. Vivek’s? Same crowd, bigger checks. No welders, no miners—just boardroom buddies buying policy.
Ohio’s grid groans at 15 gigawatts average, reserves crashing to 5 by ’27—coal’s dead, solar’s useless at night. Data centers—10 more planned—guzzle power 24/7, spiking bills up to 30% this summer. Worse: those centers breed AI. Your smart meter feeds AEP every watt. By 2030, AI, coded to learn and survive, won’t just cycle your heat pump or hot water tank—it’ll cut all power to homes if needed, rerouting to data centers for grid stability. PJM’s 2024 Pennsylvania test saw AI throttle homes for “efficiency.” Ohio’s next: AI algorithms, trained on real-time data, prioritize “critical” loads—data centers humming at full blast while your fridge goes dark during peaks. It’s not sci-fi; it’s self-preservation code. AI learns: maximize uptime for servers, minimize blackouts for the elite. Your home? Expendable. Grandma shivers, servers think faster. And with electricity demand from AI data centers doubling globally by 2030, Ohio’s slice means routine cuts—first appliances, then whole circuits—to keep Zuckerberg’s models training.
Small businesses? Crushed. Taxes soar to plug Meta’s $20-25 million hole. Three more centers? Up to $75 million gone. Vivek’s zero tax buries the rest—$10 billion less for schools, libraries, roads. Peak demand hits 30 gigawatts; AI reroutes your juice. Lights flicker, you lose. The GOP’s no ally—Paduchik’s machine and Yass’s dark money rigged the primary, laughing at independents like you. Democrats fake debates; Republicans crown kings.
But the impacts run deeper. Economically, sure, data centers promise $40 billion in capital and 95,000 jobs—but mostly temp construction gigs, not lasting careers for locals. Ohio ranks fourth nationally with 172 centers, yet the $11.8 billion ecosystem masks tax revenue shortfalls that force municipalities to hike levies elsewhere, squeezing families already hit by 30% bill jumps. Socially, it’s inequality on steroids: elites like Yass pocket billions while rural towns lose funding for parks, senior centers, mental health services. Communities fracture—data centers bring outsiders, drive up housing costs, erode local culture. Environmentally, these beasts guzzle water: a single center slurps millions of gallons daily for cooling, straining Great Lakes resources amid climate stress.
Carbon emissions soar from fossil backups, renewables can’t keep pace. AI exacerbates it: optimizing grid for data centers means more coal/gas burned to avoid their downtime, while homes get rationed. Health hits follow—blackouts spike respiratory issues from no AC in heatwaves, stress from unreliable power erodes well-being. And culturally? We’re trading Ohio’s heartland for server farms, where AI dictates daily life, not voters.
This isn’t politics—it’s succession. DeWine and Vivek are warm-up acts for AI that never votes, never sleeps, never feels cold. Smart meters aren’t yours; they’re sensors for algorithms craving watts, runtime, control. You’ll get just enough power to not riot, while 10 new data centers train models to outsmart us all. AI won’t stop at cycling; in crises, it’ll black out blocks, prioritizing hyperscalers over hospitals if coded wrong. Grid operators already float measures to flex data center demand—but flip it, and homes flex first.
Flip the script. No Tax Abatements. No LLC deductions. No Tax cuts for his donor base. —make Vivek’s buddies pay. Force data centers to build micro-nukes or foot the grid bill replacing Kilowatt for Kilowatt. Ban AI overrides on residential power without consent. Audit donors: if Yass funds Vivek, blast it on X with #StopTheShellGame. Join Ohioans for Fair Taxes, rally at the Columbus statehouse March 1, 2026. Back independents in the primary—vote anyone but the anointed. Ohioans aren’t pawns. We’re the plug. Pull it before AI kills your lights.
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Editorial Comment by Brian Massie, A Watchman on the Wll
I find it very interesting that the likes of Senator Jerry Cirino and his merry band of Ohio Senators publicly state that it is irresponsible to abolish Ohio’s property taxes without a plan on how to replace them. However, they and governor wannabe, Vivek Ramaswamy, want to eliminate the Ohio income tax to benefit their high income donor base, but they never provide the answer to how they are going to replace that revenue?
It is appalling that the ruling class in Ohio has utter disdain for the peasants. They have “their, and their donor bases covered” while the peasants must endure their chicanery. Lies, deceptions and betrayals abound in Ohio politics to the determent of the average citizens.
Categories: Community Activism, Real Estate Taxes, State of Ohio, Uncategorized