Tax the bots? Dems want to punish progress with a ‘robot tax’

The advancement of artificial intelligence found one senator once again reaching into the pockets of others with a proposed redistribution of wealth dubbed the “robot tax.”

Just as investors aim to get in on the ground floor to maximize their potential earnings from an emerging industry, anti-capitalist grifters refuse to miss out on the possibility of crippling a true free market with the imposition of new taxes.

So it was that a dire warning from Democrats about the potential loss of 100 million jobs to AI within a decade found the same party fond of telling Americans to “learn to code,” promoting a new kind of sin tax for industries that would dare turn to automation.

According to suggestions in the report released Monday by the minority members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee ahead of a Thursday hearing, 15 of 20 major workforce sectors could replace more than half of their jobs with robots or AI. Estimates further project that about 89% of the fast food workforce, or about 3 million jobs, will be lost to automation.

Per usual, HELP Committee ranking member Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) saw fit to rail against billionaires investing in AI in an op-ed published by Fox News, as he challenged their interest by asking, “Why is that? Is it because they want to improve the standard of living of the 60% of our people who live paycheck-to-paycheck — Americans who are struggling to pay for groceries, healthcare, housing, and education? Maybe. But I doubt it.”

“I think it’s because investing in AI and robotics will increase their wealth and power exponentially,” he went on. “The artificial intelligence and robotics being developed by these multi-billionaires today will allow corporate America to wipe out tens of millions of decent-paying jobs, cut labor costs, and boost profits.”

Rather than allow market forces to handle a course correction that would presumably see certain goods become more affordable, Sanders saw fit to suggest the imposition of a “robot tax” on top of other alterations to labor laws that would, as has already been demonstrated in California, lead to the ruin of small businesses across the country.

“Instead of providing hundreds of billions of dollars in additional tax breaks to expand automation–as the Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act does–we should instead enact a ‘robot tax’ on large corporations and use the revenue to benefit workers harmed by AI,” argued the report, supposedly to “protect workers and ensure that the wealth created by these technologies are redistributed back to the workers impacted.”

The report further proposed cutting the standard workweek to 32 hours and increasing the federal minimum wage to $17 per hour, as it also sought guaranteed pensions for all workers on top of paid leave guarantees.

A prime example of how increases to the minimum wage have actually driven companies toward automation played out in the once-Golden State, where Chipotle introduced its autocado machines that streamline the process of making guacamole in addition to their digital makeline assembling bowls through automation.

Chipotle’s futuristic answer to California’s minimum wage law may not be employee-friendly https://t.co/gSNeHdQry2 via @BIZPACReview

— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) September 18, 2024

Staff Writer

Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn’t researching current events and their impacts, you’ll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.

Latest posts by Kevin Haggerty (see all)

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.