If a robot takes your job, should it pay your taxes too?

Or do robots need a tax cut, too?

How to ease the pain of our tech-abundant future.
(Image credit: iStock)

Bill Gates wants to tax robots.

Now, Gates is a fantastically successful businessman. The Microsoft co-founder is worth $85 billion, after all. He's also a major philanthropist with a keen interest in public policy. But he should be careful about his musings to the media. The world's richest person can't just leave live ammo like "Maybe there should be a robot tax" lying around for some opportunistic politician to pick up. Certainly not with Donald Trump as president.

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James Pethokoukis

James Pethokoukis is the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he runs the AEIdeas blog. He has also written for The New York Times, National Review, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, and other places.