Sen. Bernie Sanders has a whole new reason to go after the world’s billionaires. This week, host Astead Herndon asks the longtime Independent senator from Vermont about his proposed annual wealth tax and how he plans to rein in AI.
Sanders has called for a moratorium on AI data centers. But with aggressive actions like that, does he think the Democratic Party runs the risk of getting left behind when it comes to AI?
He also recently introduced his Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act, a 5 percent annual wealth tax on anyone making more than a billion dollars. It’s less than a thousand people, but they are some very big names.
Elon Musk would pay up to $40 billion under the law. Mark Zuckerberg about $11 billion. But Sanders said it would fund up to $3,000 in direct payments for anyone living in a household that makes less than $150,000.
This bill has little chance of becoming law. But the effort speaks to something that’s been growing among the American public: disillusion with the wealthiest among us and the billionaire class. Sanders is sending out a signal for the 2026 midterms — and for the 2028 presidential election, too.
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