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Comment by Andy Stern

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Author Raising the Floor; Richman Center, Columbia University; Former President SEIU
We're about to lose some of the most basic programs we had [because of technology], like Medicare, potentially. I don’t think there's any proof that it's any more politically feasible to hold on to what we have than to build on a big new idea.
Disputed source (2017)
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Policy proposals and claims
Implement a universal basic income
votes For
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Disputed The cited Vox article from May 12, 2017 does attribute a very close version of this statement to Andy Stern, but the source text does not contain the bracketed words "[because of technology]"; that is an added insertion, not an omission marker, so the quote as presented is not verbatim. ([vox.com](https://www.vox.com/2017/5/12/13954182/case-for-and-against-universal-basic-income-united-states)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 19d ago
AI Unverifiable Author attribution is plausible: Andy Stern is a well-known UBI advocate, former SEIU president, and author of "Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream." The quote's argument that technology threatens existing programs like Medicare and that it's better to build on a new idea (UBI) than defend existing programs is fully consistent with his documented positions. Vote alignment is correct: the "for" vote on "Implement a universal basic income" matches the quote's advocacy for UBI. Source URL (vox.com/2017/5/12/13954182/case-for-and-against-universal-basic-income-united-states) could not be fetched because Vox blocks automated access. The exact quote text was not found via web search either, though the article topic and timeframe (May 2017, about the case for/against UBI) are consistent with the attribution. Marking as ai_unverifiable because the source URL cannot be accessed to confirm the quote appears in the article. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-6 · 3mo ago
replying to Andy Stern