Arizona families are being robbed by data center tax breaks | Opinion

Data centers are taking more than Arizona's resources. They are also robbing working families of the help they need while giving corporations millions in public money. Let's repeal those tax breaks.

May 27, 2026

Alejandra Gomez | For The Republic

Republican lawmakers want working families to believe there simply is not enough money for schools, healthcare, food assistance or affordable housing. Every year, they manufacture another crisis and tell Arizonans to expect less including fewer investments in our communities.

But the truth is simple: Arizona is not broke. It is being robbed.

And one of the clearest examples of that robbery is the massive tax giveaway Arizona hands to data centers consistently since 2013. At a time when lawmakers claim the state cannot afford to keep families fed, housed or insured, Arizona continues handing over millions to some of the wealthiest corporations in the world with virtually no accountability or public return.

What is the impact of Arizona's tax break for data centers?

That is why earlier this year Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) worked directly with Democratic lawmakers to draft and introduce SB 1463, legislation aimed at repealing Arizona’s data center tax breaks and restoring public dollars back into our communities. The bill, championed by Democratic Sen. Priya Sundareshan and Rep. Oscar De Los Santos, confronts a problem that has become impossible to ignore: Arizona is giving away roughly $40 million every year to billion-dollar data centers while taxpayers are left subsidizing the infrastructure needed to support them. Meanwhile, residents absorb the downstream consequences through higher utility costs, worsening water insecurity, strain on the power grid and deeper public austerity measures.

Those cuts are already devastating communities across our state. More than 400,000 Arizonans have lost access to SNAP food assistance because of Republican-backed policies that continue gutting the social safety net. Many of those impacted are children going hungry while corporations continue receiving massive tax giveaways. This is what it looks like to prioritize corporate profits over families.

It does not stop there. By 2028, it has been reported that 55% of Medicaid beneficiaries in Arizona will lose coverage because of Republican cuts and attacks on essential programs. Families who rely on lifesaving care are being told there is “no money,” while corporations continue receiving special treatment from Republican politicians who claim austerity only applies to working people.

Economic model helps corporations while hurting working families

Republicans created this crisis through deliberate political choices.

For decades, they have pushed the same failed economic model: endless tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy while gutting the public programs families depend on to survive. They call it “economic freedom,” but for many Arizonans, it has meant rising rents, overcrowded classrooms, crumbling public services, unaffordable healthcare and growing hunger across our state.

Arizona’s economy is increasingly built on a model that extracts public resources from working families to subsidize corporate expansion and billionaire profits. And this is not just happening in Arizona. It is part of a broader national economic agenda that prioritizes corporate wealth over the well-being of everyday people.Arizonans and Americans across the country are simply fed up.

What groups are arguing against data centers?

From Democrats, Independents, Republicans, rural residents, to environmental advocates, there is a rising coalition that is increasingly united in opposing these corporate giveaways. People understand instinctively that subsidizing billion-dollar data centers while children lose food assistance is morally bankrupt.

And ultimately, it is about what kind of country, what kind of Arizona, do we want to build?

Do we want an Arizona where public dollars are siphoned upward into corporate tax breaks while families are pushed deeper into a crisis? Or do we want an Arizona we deserve, where our resources are invested into schools, healthcare, affordable housing, childcare, food assistance and water sustainability?

Lawmakers have a clear choice to balance the budget

SB 1463 represents the first step toward answering that question.

Repealing the data center tax break should be a non-negotiable item in the final budget. Arizona cannot continue balancing its budget on the backs of hungry children while protecting corporations and data centers that are extracting wealth and resources from our communities.

Lawmakers have a clear choice to make. Mandate that data centers pay what they owe or allow the thievery to continue at the expense of our families.

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