Bitcoin Policy Institute proposes "data center dividends" for rural county residents funded entirely by property tax revenue counties already collect
WASHINGTON, Sept. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Rural counties hosting AI data centers could pay every household an estimated dividend of $4,500 to $8,900 a year without raising taxes or adding any cost for the companies building the facilities, according to a report published today by the Bitcoin Policy Institute.
The report, "Data Center Dividends: A Financial Model to Ensure Rural America's Economic Empowerment in the AI Age," arrives as local opposition overtakes energy and hardware as the binding constraint on the largest U.S. infrastructure project of the decade. The number of local data center moratoria enacted across the country has risen from six in 2024 to 294 in 2026. Gallup found in March that 71% of Americans would oppose an AI data center in their area, more than the 53% who would oppose a nuclear power plant.
Author Sam Lyman, BPI's head of research and a former senior advisor and chief speechwriter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, argues that data center dividends are essential to securing rural America's economic prosperity in the age of AI.
...read more at btcpolicy.org
pull down to refresh
related posts
Oh but wait, we can't do that. It would interfere with free market dynamics and free capitalism to get as rich as possible without worrying about anyone else. That would be unnecessary taxation. No, no, we should practicing trickle down economics, give massive subsidies to data centers to make their owners even richer, and hope and plead that they will eventually trickle down their riches to us lowly commoners with more jobs and more data centers in the future. Yes, this is the way.