America's AI boom is a jobs opportunity, not an excuse for universal basic income

The same voices warning that artificial intelligence will wipe out American jobs have a ready answer: stop working and take a government check. Some call it Universal Basic Income , others call it compassion. But I believe it is a calculated insult to the dignity of work and an admission that the people who actually build, move, and power this country have no productive role left to play. My father was a Teamster, and that fact shaped everything that came after it. My time in Congress was spent