In today’s edition … Lawmakers grapple with a post-AI economy … A tale of two Sullivans confuses the Alaska Senate race … but first …
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The GOP-controlled House passed a resolution to block further strikes on Iran yesterday, a major rebuke to President Donald Trump.
Both the House and Senate have voted numerous times on similar resolutions since the start of the conflict, but this is the first time one has passed either chamber.
The Senate advanced a similar resolution on a procedural vote last month, but it did not get voted out of the full chamber.
The House voted 215-208 with Republican Reps. Thomas Massie (Kentucky), Tom Barrett (Michigan), Warren Davidson (Ohio) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania) voting with the Democrats.
Read more from Theodoric Meyer and Mariana Alfaro here.
Is artificial intelligence coming for your job?
A growing number of lawmakers on the left feel people should be concerned. Just as the industrial and agricultural revolutions completely upended the workforce, AI threatens to make a host of jobs redundant as it rapidly advances. The employment threats from AI could target both white-collar and physical labor with the advancement of AI-powered robots.
These aren’t just some advocates talking. Some of the leading voices in the industry are making similar predictions.
“AI is increasingly matching the general cognitive profile of humans, which means it will also be good at the new jobs that would ordinarily be created in response to the old ones being automated,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote in a blog in January. “Another way to say it is that AI isn’t a substitute for specific human jobs but rather a general labor substitute for humans.”
Leftist lawmakers fear such a disruption to the labor market could exponentially expand inequality, destabilize the economy and existentially threaten the American way of life. They aren’t alone. Republicans are also voicing concern over the runaway progress in AI, with President Donald Trump signing an executive order this week requesting greater oversight of the country’s major AI companies.
An increasingly attractive solution? Taxes.
High-profile Democratic lawmakers are working on legislation to tax AI companies to both redistribute the economic benefits of AI and to slow its adoption. The proposals are wide ranging, from taxing each individual command sent through an AI platform to taking state control of the firms themselves.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) urged in a Time magazine op-ed for an overhaul of the tax code, warning that the current payroll tax model incentivizes companies to drop employees and replace them with AI, especially as AI can increasingly replicate human brainpower. She proposed raising capital gains taxes and minimum taxes for major corporations to fund social safety programs for people whose jobs could be replaced by AI. She also called for an excise tax on data centers, the energy-guzzling facilities that process the data needed for AI’s rapid expansion.
“AI was trained on human creativity and intelligence, AI was funded in part by federal investments in scientific research, and AI is powered by data centers that are built on American land and use our shared electric grid,” Warren wrote. “The American people deserve to share in the success of this technology.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) went further, calling for the creation of an “American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund” through a one-time 50 percent tax on the largest AI firms to cede control to half-public ownership. It would effectively nationalize American AI, redirecting profits back to the public and keeping AI firms accountable to voters. Sanders pitched direct payments to Americans from the fund and eventually a robust social safety net supported by AI.
The idea is akin to sovereign wealth funds in other countries that are fueled by natural resources, such as in Norway. Norway’s model redirects oil revenue to the state. Alaska has a similar fund that doles out checks to individual Alaskans from its oil profits. Trump has suggested the creation of a sovereign wealth fund, though not necessarily through a specific resource.
One problem, though, is that some of the best-known AI firms — OpenAI and Anthropic — have struggled to be profitable, though Anthropic is set to report its first profitable quarter. Sovereign wealth funds depend on profitable investments.
Taxing AI has met some resistance over concerns it would slow development and cede competition to more technologically libertine governments, like China. But that is the point, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas), who has his own AI taxation proposal, told us. Casar said slowing the adoption of AI could create a more orderly labor transition.
“I do think that it’s appropriate to level the playing field and not basically give people a tax break for getting rid of your job via AI,” Casar said. “I just don’t think that’s a Luddite position to take. I think that’s the kind of position that you’d find overwhelming support from Americans across the ideological spectrum.”
Casar proposed taxing AI tokens in a model akin to a sales tax that would charge firms for the units of data used in AI prompts. He would use that money to fund a revival of the Works Progress Administration for people whose jobs were eliminated by AI.
Several leaders in the industry have echoed the concerns of Democratic lawmakers and pitched similar solutions. Elon Musk, owner of xAI, has been a longtime backer of the creation of a universal basic income from the automation of labor.
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Casar was skeptical about a universal basic income, asserting Americans still see value in working. He took inspiration from the Great Depression works program that helped unemployed Americans reenter the workforce.
“History has shown that most Americans, the vast majority of Americans, want a meaningful career, want to help each other out, want to work, and so I don’t support the idea that we should just have mass unemployment and UBI, and call it a day,” he said.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, previously supported a universal basic income but later backed away from simple government checks. He told the Atlantic in April that fixed cash payments wouldn’t be enough to ensure “collective alignment” among the public to ensure the labor transition occurs smoothly. Altman said he would support a model of collective ownership of AI to ensure profits aren’t concentrated in a small number of firms, though he has not endorsed a Sanders-style public takeover.
Altman’s firm released a policy paper in April suggesting the creation of a public wealth fund and robust expansion of the social safety net. The paper also proposed greater emphasis on human-centered work, such as education, community building and child care, for workers displaced by AI. It directly referenced the New Deal under President Franklin Roosevelt as a source of inspiration.
Though the policy proposals presented by the AI leaders appear in line with progressive lawmakers, there have also been disagreements. Sanders has pushed for a moratorium on data center construction, fearing they would raise electricity rates and consume disproportionate amounts of water. Altman has disagreed with the characterization of data centers. Altman met with several lawmakers in Washington yesterday, including Sanders, as they craft future AI regulatory plans.
Musk also disparaged government spending as bloated and took a chainsaw (literal and figurative) to the federal government as head of the pseudo-governmental Department of Government Efficiency. He also has bemoaned his high tax bill in the past, writing that he will likely “end up paying trillions in taxes.”
Sanders, Casar and Warren said they would be introducing their bills in the coming weeks.
Sen. Dan Sullivan is not laughing at the other Dan Sullivan.
In case you missed it, the Republican Alaska senator got a challenger in his reelection from another candidate named … Dan Sullivan. And while the double Dans may seem amusing, the senator is irate.
“You guys laugh but that’s more Democrat corruption, man,” the senator angrily told Sen. Mark R. Warner, per our colleague Noah Robertson, who witnessed the exchange in the Senate subway. “I’m telling you that’s going to blow up in your face. Blow up in your face.”
Sullivan said if Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer had recruited the another Dan Sullivan to confuse Alaska voters as a few Republicans have speculated, “it’ll be the biggest scandal going.”
“It’s not funny,” he said.
Schumer is supporting former Democratic representative Mary Peltola in the state’s Senate race. Peltola’s team asserts it had nothing to do with the second Sullivan.
Alaska’s unique open primary system would make two Sullivans a real problem for the Republican incumbent. Ever since 2022, Alaska’s system allows the top four candidates in the August primary to advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. On election day, the top four candidates are subjected to a ranked-choice election. Having two Dan Sullivans in the mix could split the Republican vote.
Democrats are eyeing Alaska as a potential flip this year. Peltola served as the state’s sole representative in the House from 2022 to 2025 and has cross party appeal. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the centrist Republican, endorsed Peltola in her House run, though she has backed Sullivan (the senator) in his reelection campaign.
Anchorage Daily News (Alaska): A massive pool of candidates have filed to run for Alaska’s governorship, including 11 Republican candidates. It’s very much a feature of the state’s unique primary system.
CalMatters: There are a number of races in California that have yet to be called. Why? It take the state an inordinate amount of time to count votes, in part because of changes the state made in voting after the pandemic.
Outlier Media (Michigan): Teen takeovers are an issue in many major American cities, from Detroit to Washington, D.C. This piece gets into what teens want when they take over places — “Meet other teens, flirt and have new experiences.”
Trump plans to impose tariffs on several countries over concerns of forced labor. We’ve covered how the president has repurposed tariffs from tools for trade to punitive measures closer to sanctions. What do you think? Should countries that engage in forced labor be tariffed? Should trade policy be a way to direct human rights policy?
Let us and your fellow Early Brief readers know at [email protected].
Thanks for reading. You can follow Dan and Matthew on X: @merica and @matthewichoi.
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