In June, 2026, a state law went into effect in Oregon that blocks, for one year, new data centers from receiving millions in local and state tax breaks for building the politically-toxic and environmentally-unredeemable AI data centers. Even so, Hillsboro, Oregon and Washington County politicians chose to rush through their own local statutes that provide (before the state moratorium went into effect) millions of dollars in public money giveaways for future corporate welfare data center payments to the likes of Intel, Amazon, Dropbox, etc.
The result has been the filing a lawsuit by some elected officials and NEA affiliate, the Oregon Education Association, to halt the further draining away of public school funds for the billionaire tax bros to get even fatter at the expense of taxpayers’ children.
And we’re talking about big money here. In 2024, alone, Oregon’s public schools and education services agencies lost $275,000,000 in tax giveaways to Big Tech. For context, Oregon’s school districts spent $247 million on child nutrition in 2023.
While Randi Weingarten, president of AFT, cuts sweetheart deals with the Tech Bros to impose AI on teachers and students, it’s good to see that there are teacher union efforts now joined to limit the harm that the AI insanity is bringing to public education.
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