A pro-growth, pro-family, pro-entrepreneur tax plan that keeps the AI economy broadly owned — and therefore politically and socially sustainable. This is a Nextbigfuture, Brian Wang proposal for broadening AI participation.
The strategic bet, you don’t beat the appeal of confiscatory, anti-market politics by arguing against it. You beat it by giving the people most drawn to it — young workers, young families, and small-business owners — a direct, felt stake in the AI boom’s upside. An AI economy owned by a handful of firms is fragile but broad participation is what keeps it durable.
The Five Pillars
Pillar 01 — Keep your check
Young Worker Exemption
No federal income tax for anyone earning under ~$100k, and none for anyone under 35 earning under ~$500k. Payroll taxes stay, preserving the Social Security and Medicare earned-benefit link. This targets the exact cohorts — under-35s and lower-and-middle earners — where support for expansive-government alternatives runs highest.
Pillar 02 — Have the kids
Pro-Family Stack
A refundable Birth Allowance — roughly $6,000 in year one and $3,000/yr through age five, paid as cash so parents who now owe no income tax still receive it — plus a marriage-neutral design and tax-free First-Home savings accounts for under-35s.
Pillar 03 — Make room
Housing Unlock
Pair the cash with the real gate on family formation: housing supply. A federal permitting and infrastructure bonus rewards states that legalize more homes near jobs. In surveys, affordability — not desire — is the dominant barrier to having children.
Pillar 04 — Found it here
Entrepreneur Runway
A young founder drawing a salary under $500k already owes zero income tax under Pillar 01 — the headline founder subsidy. Layer on a 100% capital-gains exclusion on qualified startup equity, a 180-day angel-reinvestment rollover, and permanent R&D/software and equipment expensing (building on the 2025 §174A and bonus-depreciation baseline).
Pillar 05 — Adopt it fast
Main-Street AI Adoption
A capped AI Adoption Allowance lets small and mid-size firms fully expense AI tools, integration, and worker retraining, backed by SBIR-style compute vouchers, a light-touch startup sandbox, and one-day business formation — putting AI productivity in the hands of the local clinic, contractor, and accountant, not only the hyperscalers
A temporary, capped AI Adoption Allowance — small and mid-size firms fully and immediately expense AI software, integration, and employee-retraining costs, plus a time-limited credit (30% up to a per-firm cap) for first-time adoption. This reaches the local accountant, contractor, and clinic — the small-business owners who both vote and employ, and who otherwise watch productivity gains accrue only to big tech.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
1. Most people, especially young families, want to live in a house with a yard close to parks, good schools, and convenient shopping – grocery stores/living staples (clothes, house durables, etc.).
2. Most people born in America do not want to live in a large apartment complex. Even more don’t want to live in an Urban high rise/rabbit hutch.
3. Any assumptions that people want to live in a core Urban city, or that young professionals are returning there, is elitist bunk. It is often this assumption that wrecks major metropolitan areas and infrastructure.
4. As important as anything (its already happening) – bring manufacturing, distribution, and AI growth jobs to the suburbs/exurbs. Read Joel Kotkin’s excellent book ‘The Human City’ and visit his website https://www.newgeography.com before it is closed down. Joel is a professor emeritus at Chapman University.
5. Land, housing, and infrastructure is a lot cheaper outside the city core. Texas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, The Carolinas, and Arizona are blowing everyone else away because they understand this. No federal intervention required. (Although incentives to have kids might be good thing – provided it is accompanied by restoring respect and support for motherhood, fatherhood, and family).
6. Let Urban decay run its natural course, so that prices drop and urban renewal can begin.
But about “50% to 60%” of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
That means:
“Unable to cover a $400 emergency without borrowing or going into debt.
No meaningful savings buffer (less than 1 month of expenses saved).
High monthly expenses relative to income.
Living month-to-month with little to no financial cushion.”
So if 30 – 45 % of income is average spent on rent/mortgage it is pretty logical to cut that down a bit and not live from paycheck to paycheck, wouldnt you agree? If that can happen by less bureaucracy and changing zoning laws I mean it is no brainer. Unless people want to suffer.
And if you make more apartment complex that doesnt mean all must live there. Because more available housing prices will go down for the rest of population.
1. Most people does not mean all. If that is 50-60 % the rest prefer&are fine with living in flats,…
2. You said most, but if that is approx 50 – 60%, others prefer& are fine with something else. “Rabbit hutch” is how you state/ frame it. We must not forget about (singles, young childless couples, empty nesters, elderly) and their preferences.
3. So called “elitist bunk” is really a bad ideological assumption. People have different preferences for a specific demographic at a specific life stage.
4. This is true, Joe Kolkin is credentialed theorist, many agree with him and also many disagree with his theories.
5. Mostly true.
6. This is false. “Urban decay” does not mean self correct. History shows the opposite. Decay creates doom loops: falling tax base → worse services → more flight → more decay. Renewal usually requires ACTIVE intervention, not passivity: policing, tax incentives, infrastructure investment, zoning reform.
As I see it the largest or one of the largest things, that are limiting prosperity for ordinary Americans is the high cost of housing, because of zoning regulations. You can have low cost of food, electronics, gas compared to some other countries, but high cost of housing eats away all those benefits.
Yes, unfortunately housing is both a necessity and treated as an investment that is meant to always get more expensive. I’ve wondered if a possible, and possibly too expensive, solution to this problem would be leaving it as in investment (system seems to far gone to stop this) but the government would heavily encourage (via money) the production of more housing. This would deflate housing prices and thus more money would be used to pay any homeowner of just 1 or 2 homes for some of the loss their home(s) value.
https://www.longtermtrends.com/us-debt-to-gdp/
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/deficit-tracker/
2008 crisis was as a catastrophe, since debt exploded all over world and was not reduced back in the following decade. So much debt is limiting prosperity, because you need to pay interests instead of developing infrastructure,…
On pillar #3, it is too mild a solution to get past zoning and NIMBYism.
Why not shift to a Land Value Tax instead?
This would be a lifting of taxes on improvements, including new buildings, entirely.
It would be offset by increasing the tax on Land (location in urban areas) to make up the difference.
The tax shift will mean: less land hoarding and speculation because landowners will be as highly taxed as those who build on similar lots. They will develop their land or sell it to someone else who will develop it.
Buildings and improvements will be untaxed so – assuming zoning doesn’t get in the way – they will be built to the highest and best use. No more unsustainable single family home tracts near big cities, making commutes to affordable land intolerable. The suburbs can’t pay for themselves already given the low tax base and sprawling utilities and services. The LVT encourages density and building units cheaply, the real solution to affordability.
The results are tried and proven 100s of times. See here: https://commonground-usa.net/heres-how-your-state-could-reduce-taxes-for-most-taxpayers-and-stimulate-your-economy-while-maintaining-complete-revenue-neutrality-2/ and here: https://commongroundnyc.org/
I’d be more for abolishing the productivity-squashing income tax in favor of the LVT, rather than making it age-restricted, which would only drive down wages for young people since employers would know those wages would be untaxed until 35, and any salary over $500k would be changed to untaxed stock options instead at the demand of these high and powerful earners anyway.
The deficit and even the debt could be eliminated as it comes due by restoring sovereign money, first used during the Civil War when president Lincoln and Congress doubled the federal budget to pay for the war, by having the Treasury Dept. (there was no Central Bank in 1862-1963 and private banks wanted 24-36% interest on loans to the struggling U.S. government) print the first official national paper money: U.S. Notes. These are still valid and were in official circulation until 1996, our longest-lasting currency. Today they are sold on eBay for 3X face value. An electronic version could repay all domestic debt (they were never used for foreign debt) by the federal government as it comes due and pay off the entire debt in 5-20 years (estimates vary).
A continuous supply – controlled for inflation by the widely calculated Output Gap – the difference between what the country produces vs. what it could produce with its labor and natural resources (Land in classical economics) measured by GDP – could be sent to a network of state public banks, to partner in lending with local state community banks for new businesses, student, mortgage and personal loans. The big TBTF banks aren’t much interested in making these kinds of small-medium loans and small banks have largely gone out of business or been merged with larger banks. The state public Bank of North Dakota has been in business since 1919, never had a scandal and has a better ROE than large commercial banks. It returns profits to the state and is counter-cyclical too.
The Fed and commercial banks would continue doing what they do, but this change would fill a badly needed financing gap and bring down growth-destroying inequality.