'It's a Money Loser': Tax Breaks for Data Centers Are Under Fire
bloomberg.comTrue...but "Data Centers" is pretty much redundant here. The vast majority of ways in which politicians (in effect) give away public money to benefit private interests are guaranteed money losers for the public.
Anecdote: Back in the 1980's, my kid brother spent a few years working in a (US state) governor's Budget Office. One set of data they tracked was the Donation Multiplier for various "projects", which properly-bought politicians might do for a donor's benefit. Whether it was running a nice paved road & utilities to the donor's big plot of undeveloped land, or tax breaks for new construction, or whatever - everything had a price. Good cover stories (don't ask for $$$ for a new toxic waste dump) and a skilled lobbyist or two was always needed - but the multipliers for nice-sounding or hard-to-notice stuff were always very large.