Who Pays When AI Takes the Jobs? The Token Tax, Explained

Three-quarters of all U.S. federal tax revenue comes from labor. So what happens when AI starts replacing the workers that revenue depends on? In this episode, Shae breaks down a January 2026 Brookings Institution paper on the future of tax policy in the age of AI — walking through five proposed AI taxes, explaining exactly how a token tax works and when it does not, and asking the harder question underneath all of it: fund government to do what, and for whom?
• "The Future of Tax Policy: A Public Finance Framework for the Age of AI" , Anton Korinek & Lee Lockwood, Brookings Institution (January 2026) - brookings.edu/articles/future-tax-policy-a-pub…
• Companion Technical Working Paper, Korinek & Lockwood, Brookings Institution (January 2026) - brookings.edu/articles/public-finance-age-ai-p…

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