Dem policymakers plan to exploit AI job fears to push the perfect recipe for fraud

Behind the scenes in Washington, many policymakers are planning for an economic disruption: potential job displacement caused by AI.Yet some act like today’s safety net doesn’t exist, despite the massive $1.2 trillion a year in federal funds spent on 90-plus means-tested programs.Instead of reforming programs, they’d create new ones — including one resembling a deeply flawed pandemic program riddled with fraud.We have to do better than that.  A New York Times article warning that “the federal safety net isn’t ready” for the potential shock of “widespread job losses” attributable to AI is a good example of such misguided thinking.And it’s consistent with widespread fear-mongering about “AI’s potential to wipe out jobs, eradicate privacy and possibly even endanger humanity.” Despite such apocalyptic rhetoric, the extent of AI-driven job losses is unknown.Unemployment remains historically low, and poverty, when properly measured, has trended downward for decades.  That should be cause for policymaking humility, not bold ambitions.

But federal policymaking is anything but normal.As Rahm Emanuel famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” — especially when it’s an opportunity to realize your vision for a bigger, more expensive federal government.For liberals, that means AI fears offer a chance to create more programs, instead of asking whether the current leviathan should be reformed to better meet needs.Sen.Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), notably, proposes reviving a pandemic-era program he authored that provided a vastly expanded range of unemployment checks to non-workers and others not covered by unemployment insurance. Wyden’s no ordinary member; he’s the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees taxes and vast swaths of federal spending, including on unemployment checks.If Democrats sweep this fall’s elections, he’ll once again play a key role in determining who collects future...