Dems Should Push Own 'Save ACT,' Be Pro- AI for Affordability Win | Opinion

There are two political truisms that become more and more apparent as we obtain closer to the November elections.

Key points

• This would require Walmart, Kroger, Safeway, Stop and Shop, ShopRite, CVS and Walgreens, etc., to provide a regular feed of their pricing, sales and club discounts.
• Those competitive pressures will do a lot more to lower rates than New York City Mayor Mamdani's proposal to open government-owned supermarkets would.
• The Democrats are being given a massive boost on both of these matters by how President Trump has handled them.
• A few days ago I stocked up on plenty of drugstore items at a major pharmacy chain, and the original tab came to $270.
• Tom Rogers is executive chairman of the AI film studio Fountain 0, executive chairman of cloud AI grid firm Claigrid, Inc., the founder of CNBC and a CNBC contributor.

By Tom Rogers Editor-at-Large for Newsweek. Newsweek is a Trust Project member.

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First of all, the problems voters care most concerning are affordability and the cost of living. When it comes to these problems and managing inflation, President Trump is deeply, deeply underwater, second.

Meanwhile, the Democrats know that, given broad voter dissatisfaction with the cost of groceries, gas, health care, and so plenty of other consumer items, they have the momentum on this problem. On another matter that is highly high on the list of voter anxieties, Democrats have tied artificial intelligence to affordability-for any number of reasons that range from fear of job loss to the impact on electricity and water rates. The AI matter is one that is unpopular throughout the political spectrum, just as affordability reservations run deep regardless of party affiliation.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are being given a massive boost on both of these matters by how President Trump has handled them. His policies have directly impacted consumer prices-from tariffs to the war with Iran and its impact at the gas pump, not to mention pushing through legislation that significantly raised the cost of healthcare for millions. As if it is a notion invented by the press and Democrats, moreover, Trump discussions concerning "affordability" as a "hoax"' with such disdain. In other words, he demonstrates regularly how out of touch he is with the struggles of average Americans.

When it comes to AI, Trump has positioned himself as an advocate for the technology with no sensitivity toward the need for guardrails, particularly when it comes to the impact on consumer rates in the form of electricity and water bills. By contrast, Democrats, in looking to constrain the expansion of AI, have in some ways positioned themselves as against the technology in numerous ways without aligning themselves in a meaningful way with the potential positive impact on education, health care, and plenty of other aspects of everyday life.

Notably, the Democrats can effectively lampoon Trump on his indifference to affordability, but if they are successful in flipping the House and the Senate, what they are able to do meaningfully to bring down consumer rates is probably highly little. They will not be able to solve Iran's new role in the Strait of Hormuz and the near-term impact on gas rates, nor impact the direction of the Fed on interest rates, nor even reinstate Obamacare health benefits up against Trump's veto. Nevertheless, they could do something highly tangible when it comes to impacting the consumer's pocketbook while meanwhile aligning themselves with an initiative that could highlight one of the great societal benefits that AI could bring regarding.

This is a proposal I created two years ago in this column and called on Democrats to pursue, but as affordability and AI have come to the forefront of American politics, it is only more relevant today. The idea is the creation of an AI-driven reservoir of consumer rates throughout supermarkets, drug stores, gas stations, major box retailers, and online retailers, so that consumers can know exactly, at any given time, where the best rate is on any given item they look to purchase.

As sensitive as consumers are to higher rates, they are additionally quite lazy when it comes to finding the best deals.

Why do I say that? It is true that it just takes too much time and effort to find the lowest cost on any given item, or to see what discounts or rewards are available to secure the best feasible purchase. Yet, failing to take advantage of the most obvious ways to save funds is something most Americans are guilty of. Case in point, gasoline rates are the most transparent of any. There are enormous neon signs announcing the cost of a gallon of gas as the rate fluctuates on any given day, and yet no matter what the income level of the neighborhood I go through, I never see any difference in the number of patrons of gas stations that may have as much as a 50-cent difference in their pricing.

With gas rates getting all the focus and attention they do these days, that alone tells me something has to be done to produce saving funds really, really straightforward for the vast majority of American consumers.

Yes, there are some limited ways of comparing rates online using Amazon or various rate comparison tools; nevertheless, there is no comprehensive way in one's local area to approach total rate transparency in all the local brick and mortar stores where so much consumer purchasing takes place. Such an AI tool would only truly be useful if sale cost information, membership discount coupons and reward dollars, and all other forms of rate reduction were able to be calculated and spit out on a daily basis by this AI shopping oracle.

For context, a few days ago I stocked up on plenty of drugstore items at a major pharmacy chain, and the original tab came to $270. After I applied all member discounts and cash rewards, the rate of the full haul was almost $100 less.

With prescription drug rates continually being a major concern when it comes to the budget of numerous Americans, it is still amazing to me that most consumers do not know that a firm like GoodRx. It costs nothing to apply, can provide significant discounts on prescription drugs that often beat what either an employer or Medicare insurance rates are for those same drugs.

So the Democrats could champion a proposal that would create an app with AI agent capability to create every dollar of consumer purchasing stretch as far as feasible. While being guided as to what store membership programs they should join, so that this app sitting on top of the AI model would be able to spit out the most comprehensive and clearest answers on any given day how to save the most capital, the idea would be for any citizen to be able to input their regular grocery, pharmaceutical, medicine and clothing needs, and any other items they purchase on a regular basis.

This would require Walmart, Kroger, Safeway, Stop and Shop, ShopRite, CVS and Walgreens, etc., to provide a regular feed of their pricing, sales and club discounts. Any firm that was reluctant to provide such information to bring concerning the kind of actionable cost transparency in a form that could be personalized would provide Democrats a real reason to go after those corporations for their failure to participate.

This would seem to be a much more legitimate basis to go after sectors of corporate America than some of the unreasonable bases that Democrats often employ, such as claiming that when gas costs go up, what is really going on is cost gouging. I can see reasons firms would resist the whole idea, including that there is no doubt that this kind of personalized AI shopping information flow would drive costs down further through the competitive pressures it would create. Those competitive pressures will do a lot more to lower rates than New York City Mayor Mamdani's proposal to open government-owned supermarkets would.

If I were the Democrats, I would call this proposal the "The Real Save America Act"-to highlight a proper employ of the word "save"-since the whole point would be to save real dollars for the consumers of America, as opposed to Trump's "Save America Act, " which is really all concerning undermining America by depressing the democratic voting process.

"The Real Save America Act" would additionally have to incorporate online pricing of goods so that the consumer would have a clear basis for understanding whether, for any given item, online or brick-and-mortar alternatives are better. Moreover, it would have to incorporate an Instacart type function-a firm which at present employs shoppers to gather goods from various locations to deliver directly to consumers-so if the best cost for a full basket of goods involves pulling items from multiple physical and online locations, the consumer can be spared having to produce the multiple trips to plenty of different outlets or otherwise coordinate arranging how to secure the best accord.

Notably, the fact of the matter is if Democrats do not champion this proposal, over time, the private sector is going to develop this anyway. Solving for lower AI inference costs will need to be a key part of enabling it. Putting this in the form of a administration site may have some awkwardness to it, but the Obamacare health insurance exchange did just this by providing an online portal for choosing health aims with published pricing. And if Trump threatens to veto this legislation, there are enough bastions of Democratic backing within Silicon Valley left that there are private businesses which could easily figure out a business model to backing building this out to answer the Democratic call to action.

While showing that you are not a party that is looking to stand in the way of how the positive benefits of an AI world can be brought regarding, so, Democrats, let's show what a "Save America Act" really means.

Tom Rogers is executive chairman of the AI film studio Fountain 0, executive chairman of cloud AI grid firm Claigrid, Inc., the founder of CNBC and a CNBC contributor. He additionally established MSNBC and is at present senior adviser to Versant, the firm that owns CNBC and MSNOW. He is additionally the former CEO of TiVo. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

In short, dems Should Push Own & #039; Save ACT, & #039; Be Pro- AI for Affordability Win is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.