Bernie Sanders Unveils $7 Trillion Plan To Give Americans Control of AI Industry (apnews.com)
- Reference: 0183967974
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/06/18/1914206/bernie-sanders-unveils-7-trillion-plan-to-give-americans-control-of-ai-industry
- Source link: https://apnews.com/article/bernie-sanders-ai-public-ownership-57b9f20d96490083e2749adba0f13977
> As artificial intelligence companies reshape the economy and race toward trillion-dollar valuations, Sen. Bernie Sanders is [1]proposing a sweeping transfer of wealth and power from the industry to the American public. The legislation, shown first to The Associated Press, would create a sovereign wealth fund overseen by an independent commission and financed through a one-time 50% tax on the stock of the largest AI companies. Sanders estimates that the tax would create a nearly $7 trillion fund that [2]would generate hundreds of billions of dollars annually in direct payments to Americans and programs such as health care, education and housing.
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> [...] The 50% tax would apply to AI companies that reach $200 million in annual AI sales. Any new AI company that reaches that benchmark would also be subject to the tax. It would create a sovereign wealth fund -- similar to those used by countries around the world and some U.S. states -- that Sanders estimates would be worth around $7 trillion. Unlike a traditional tax, the proposal would require companies to transfer stock rather than cash, effectively making the American public a major shareholder in the country's largest AI firms.
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> A seven-person independent commission -- nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate -- would manage the fund and use its voting shares "to block decisions that hurt the American people and to push for policies that help them," the bill summary says. Sanders proposes that a 5% annual dividend from the fund would provide direct payments of more than $1,000 to every American. If companies grow, the gains would be used for public goods such as education, housing and health care. Sanders argues taxpayers would not bear the losses if AI company valuations decline. "We're not going to lose any money, even if there is a bust in the bubble," Sanders said. The commission would be directed to "to block decisions that hurt the American people and to push for policies that help them," according to the summary.
"The benefits cannot simply go to the handful of wealthy corporations. They will be shared by the American people," the independent Vermont senator said in an interview Wednesday. "The public has got to have a significant seat at the table to make sure that terrible things do not happen to ordinary people, and that in fact, AI benefits ordinary people, not hurts them," Sanders said.
[1] https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-introduces-legislation-to-create-7-trillion-ai-sovereign-wealth-fund/
[2] https://apnews.com/article/bernie-sanders-ai-public-ownership-57b9f20d96490083e2749adba0f13977
Fox News Headline Alternative (Score:1, Flamebait)
The radical lefts new plan to cripple the American economy
Re: Fox News Headline Alternative (Score:4, Funny)
Sarah Connor heaves a sigh of relief as Skynet decides to terminate Bernie instead.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
> ...not a considered response.
You can stop your consideration at the 50% "one time" tax. That is a hard pass from me. Nothing good EVER comes from a one-time tax. They ALWAYS turn into a permanent tax. The rest of his proposal is totally irrelevant.
Re: (Score:2)
The true leftists are showing their colors. They are bat nuts crazy.
Re:Fox News Headline Alternative (Score:4, Informative)
i have news for you: there is no left in america, let alone radical. there is only right, extreme right and fanatical right.
bernie knows prefectly well this is doa, he's just trying to get some attention.
Bernie isn't after attention (Score:2)
The dude is so old he literally fought in the civil Rights movement. Like the one that gave black people the right to vote that we are gradually taking away again.
Bernie is following an old activist playbook that used to work back in 1960 and stopped working around the mid 70s when the at the time millionaires and now billionaires adapted to those tactics and made them moot.
It feels like he's after attention because what he is doing is so completely balls to the walls ineffective. But that isn't bec
Re: (Score:2)
I mean it's [1]not just the Left that's talking about it. [apnews.com]
[1] https://apnews.com/article/sam-altman-ai-bernie-sanders-trump-public-ownership-772224f9cd138eb79d3ef3336858a5d5
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, I love Bernie, but this sounds like a completely unworkable idea (forced selling of 5% of the stocks every year until they reach zero? Also losing a share voting majority after selling the first 5%?). It's a Frankenstein non-solution for having significant influence on AI companies and redirecting wealth towards the working class.
Full nationalisation of AI companies, progressive corporate tax, corporate wealth tax and other ideas are all better than this.
Re: (Score:1)
Commies in the comments in shambles when their world view falls apart from the most obvious thing ever.
Re:Thinking Too Small (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a really good question, with probably some answers. Given that AI promises that companies can thrive using AI with less human labor, it seems directly relevant to Bernie's goal as well.
Re: (Score:2)
This. Corporations currently have too much power while having no responsibility. In return for corporate protections the citizens granting them those protections should be half owner. AI is just the latest straw in the corporate-behavior-run-amok.
Re: Thinking Too Small (Score:4, Funny)
I'd like to see corporations able to be tried as people. 5 year jail sentence = 5 year government ownership.
Re: (Score:2)
> LOL, another leftist who has no idea how economy works. Here's a hint: the state offers jack shit in terms of protections. If a company goes bust, it's its debtors that foot the bill, not the government.
You mean, like the banks in 2008? They got no government assistance and all went under ... right?
> The only thing government does is provide some standardised legal structure, so every contract doesn't need to have 20 additional pages describing liability limits.
Among other things, the government provides patent and copyright protections, which are enormously valuable to corporate profits and have been strengthened over time. [1]Dean Baker [cepr.net], of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, goes on about this frequently. For example, " [2]The Real Abundance Agenda: Weakening Patent and Copyright Monopolies [cepr.net]": "... government-granted patent and copyright monopolies. We easily pay
[1] https://cepr.net/people/dean-baker/
[2] https://cepr.net/publications/the-real-abundance-agenda-weakening-patent-and-copyright-monopolies/
The bailout record: taxpayer profit (Score:2)
As documented here
[1]https://projects.propublica.or... [propublica.org]
[1] https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/
Re: Thinking Too Small (Score:2)
Tie it to GDP and use it to make sure no companies get too big to fail so we don't need to socialize the risk. It'll also assure that there's competition.
I think we're both somewhat sarcastic, but there is a certain beauty to using it as a way to foster competition and reduce the need for bail outs.
Re: (Score:2)
Corporations basically don't pay taxes, even if they look like they are.
The CBO produced a report "THE INCIDENCE OF THE CORPORATE INCOME TAX" in which it states "A corporation may write its check to the Internal Revenue Service for payment of the corporate income tax, but that money must come from somewhere: from reduced returns to investors in the company, lower wages to its workers, or higher prices that consumers pay for the products the company produces."
And it goes on to say
"Although economists are far
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, this can't work for all the reasons listed.
It's also not clear how you would even do something like that for a company like Google, where more than half the voting rights are controlled by the founders. Even if the company acquired every share that anyone puts on the market and gave them to the government, they can't compel individuals to sell their shares, so the government would never achieve a controlling interest.
And trying to do so such a mass acquisition would cause total chaos in the stock ma
Re: (Score:2)
> Even if the company acquired every share that anyone puts on the market and gave them to the government, they can't compel individuals to sell their shares, so the government would never achieve a controlling interest.
From the [1]text of the actual bill [senate.gov]: "In any case in which an applicable AI company issues equity interests ...." So the 50% share seems to apply only to new issuance of stock, not stock previously issued or already owned.
[1] https://www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/AmericanAIWealthFundTextv618.pdf
Then when it crashes (Score:2)
We all get a bill. Noice.
Re: (Score:2)
it's a teeny bit too early for that but ... don't give them (more) ideas!
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That parts gonna happen anyway.
Unless he does something about voter suppression (Score:1)
This is just more pissing in the wind.
It's easy to use propaganda and culture wars to get right wing extremists to 45% in any election. From there you've just got to use 7 hour wait times and illegals voter registration/signature challenges to stop 6% from voting and winner take all politics takes care of the rest.
Lack of fiscal faith (Score:2)
Either:
1. AI is a scam, in which case Bernie is proposing they rob the robbers before the public figures out that they're getting taken. Definitely a heist film.
2. AI is the real deal, in which case Bernie is skimming 50% off the top as part of their deal to let AI have their way with the American economy. Notice he's not promising that he won't came back later to take another 50% haircut.
I'm a little weirded out by the fact that you could also just take an non-voting equity stake in these companies, co
Re: (Score:2)
Nevermind, I was reading the Ars Technica version of the article that leaves out the part where they take stock instead of cash under the 50% haircut, and are proposing to pay dividends based on that fund.
Strangely enough, I don't have any objections to this plan.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't have objections to the government straight up confiscating 50% of a corporation? Really? You ok when they come and take 50% of your company?
Re: (Score:2)
Dilution is preferable to paying cash taxes on unrealized gains - the other socialist/progressive "solution" to people being successful. And, one would hope that negotiations would get things closer to a reasonable percentage from 50%, like the 10% the US government took in Intel.
It aligns the interests of the government with the company - you can't pay dividends on a wealth fund based on equity stakes if you take actions (policy or otherwise) that tank the value of the stock.
If anything, having the govern
How exactly does a 50% tax on stock value work? (Score:2)
Genuine question - I'm not opposed to the idea in principle but I don't know how it would work. I don't really know how sovereign tax funds work, but the press release mentions "natural resources". Ai companies are not a "natural resource" so I don't know how current US tax law would even allow companies to pay with taxes with stock. They aren't even a "natural monopoly" like telephones and utilities used to be, so that argument doesn't really work, but IINAL. It also sounds like it would be easily challen
Re: (Score:2)
I'm also not opposed to the idea. Not because of a supposed concentration of wealth. Musk does not have a trillion dollars, taken from elsewhere, sitting in a giant warehouse somewhere; it's all stock in a massively overvalued company that he built. His riches do not make us poorer. And I don't envy him his wealth, he's welcome to it.
What I do have an issue with, is the concentration of power this represents. Wealth, whether in actual dollars, publicly traded stock or private stock, represents an und
Re: (Score:2)
Could look at the proposed [1]5% that California was attempting [wikipedia.org].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_California_billionaire_tax_initiative
Re: (Score:1)
A foreign/soverign wealth fund is just a normal mutual fund (collection of shares from different companies) that happens to be owned by a government rather than individual investors. What Bernie is proposing is that such a fund is formed, but rather than purchasing 50% of the shares in the AI companies, the government forces the companies to issue them 50% of their shares, for free (thats the "tax"). In practice this means the AI companies will create a new set of shares, equal in number to their existing
independent commission - right (Score:2)
> overseen by an independent commission ... A seven-person independent commission -- nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate -- would manage the fund and use its voting shares ...
Until a President replaces them with lackeys who'll do his bidding and SCOTUS (again) says it's okay. So far, pretty much the only independent entity (agency, commission, etc...) the Court hasn't waffled on, especially under this administration, is The Federal Reserve.
[1]Supreme Court Prepares to Dismantle Independent Agencies in Favor of Partisan Chaos [afj.org] (Oct 2025)
[1] https://afj.org/article/supreme-court-prepares-to-dismantle-independent-agencies-in-favor-of-partisan-chaos/
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. A seven-person commission nominated by the President. What could go wrong there? (The pool of potential nominees would be chosen by Congress, but we've seen how effective Congress is not.)
To get an idea of how this would work, maybe it would be as successful as the Board of Peace, also chosen by the President. Look at all the great things that Potemkin facade has accomplished.
Pendulum swings. (Score:1)
Keep pushing it right guys. Do any of the hardcore righties think they're going to be in power forever? You guys have torn off all the guardrails and made a big show of doing whatever you want.
This sort of thing is coming. It's going to have to be something along these lines, or complete collapse.
One Time (Score:2)
yeah, sure, totally. One time only. uh huh.
I work public sector. The only thing that scares me more than an unhinged capitalist AI system for profit only is an unhinged AI system built and maintained by government bureaucracy. It will either be totally ineffective, or will murder you and produce documentation in triplicate to be distributed to all departments justifying said murder. Perhaps both?
Some questions (Score:2)
[1]Text of the proposed bill [senate.gov] (an update to the Internal Revenue code).
AI companies would include any companies "Researching, producing, or manufacturing advanced robotics." Would that include the daVinci surgical robots? What about robots for military purposes?
"There are authorized to be appropriated from the Fund for each fiscal year amounts equal to 5 percent of the average market value of the Fund for the fiscal year, reduced by the reasonable costs of administering the Fund .... to provide for direct pa
[1] https://www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/AmericanAIWealthFundTextv618.pdf
No thanks (Score:1, Insightful)
More socialism? Nah, pass.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
More oversimplifying? Nah, pass.
Re: No thanks (Score:2)
Well let's examine it in more detail then:
Socialism is defined simply as government owned means of production. Go ahead and pull out a dictionary. Some argue "collective", "community", or some other doublespeak term, but if you look at what they intend that term to mean, it looks like a government and quacks like a government. That said:
Here you have a proposal where 50% of all revenue from sales (not profit) has to be turned over to the government in shares. The only realistic way to do that is by diluting
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not a supporter of Sanders' plan, but it's a one-time tax, so government ownership wouldn't become 100% under it.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
If the government wants ownership it can pay for it with money just like everyone else. It's very simple. (This was always allowed and is common)
You don't get 50% of a company by decree. This isn't the USSR.
Re: No thanks (Score:4, Funny)
"If the government wants ownership it can pay for it with borrowed money just like everyone else."
tftfy
Re: (Score:2)
yeah someone has to keep the wheel spinning!
Re: No thanks (Score:2)
From whom does the Fed borrow when it does QE?
Re: (Score:2)
"This isn't the USSR." It is in the dreams of the left. But they have a huge problem.
Which ever group on the left wins, that winner will use the lefts Antifa Anarchist wing to destroy their partners.
History shows the Communist, Islamist and Socialist can not co exist.
As for the few Liberals and Democrats left in the party, they will need to shut up and go with the flow or leave/get kicked out the party.
Re: (Score:1)
Bro as a true progressive I fucking despise these motherfuckers. They ruin everything they fucking touch
We had it all. We were 12% away from covering everyone. At the end of the Biden admin uninsured Americans dropped to just 12%. The lowest it has ever been in the history of the country. That 12% could be fully covered if you go in with a scalpel and do the work on only 0.5% of our tax revenue. But nooooo......
They decided to overshoot by going too far to the left with the Palestine bullshit as if it matte
Re: No thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
It did.
Whose money did you think those bailouts, handouts, stimuli etc were?
Re: (Score:1)
I know. That's my point. You can, in fact, make money doing this. That's the free market. Why would the government leave money on the table? That's our money. You wanna run the government like a business? Here it is. Fuck it. Buy low, sell high baby.
Re: (Score:2)
The proposal here was not for the government to BUY the stocks, just like anyone else. It was for the government to TAKE the stocks. For free. In return for nothing.
And, regardless, the key difference between capitalism and socialism (in this context) is who owns the means of production: private citizens, or the government? Once the government owns the means of production (whether they bought it or seized it), then that qualifies as socialism.
This slider isn't exactly boolean. It is totally possible fo
Re: No thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not into socialism, but I'm not convinced it's worse than 1 company having control of what's today's entire GDP in the relatively short term. And that's what SpaceX is claiming they'll have in the case for their valuation.
Re: (Score:2)
Elon Musk has more money and therefore more power than 172 countries. That's out of I think 196.
You are not a free man when somebody in this world has that much power. Because anytime they want they can order you what to do and you're either going to do it or they're going to kill you and there's nothing you can do about it.
People on the right wing don't want to be free, they want to be slotted into a hierarchy that puts them as close to the top as they think they can manage to weasel their way into.
Re: (Score:3)
I really want to like Bernie, but I'm to old to trust any politician from either party. He'll need 7 Elons and blind faith before I'd entertain this lighthearted idea. Even then, why do I feel like this is a bad idea? AI is here. It's not going away. I'd love to see the bubble pop so I can buy some ram. Killing nerds for memory isn't a good way of living.
Re: (Score:2)
MORE socialism? Where's ANY socialism in the US worth the label?
Also, that capitalism is working out so well. For the thousand or so people at the pinnacle. The average people not so much, but who cares about them, they're poors, right?