Stone Inequality & Social Policy Seminar: Vanessa Williamson

The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History

Vanessa Williamson, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Abstract: Americans have always fought over the meaning of freedom and equality. What is not commonly recognized is that the battles most pivotal in defining our democracy, from the framing of the Constitution to the decades-long backlash to the civil rights movement, hinged on one issue—taxes.  Brookings senior fellow Vanessa Williamson will discuss her new book, The Price of Democracy, revealing that fights over taxes have always been proxies for deeper conflicts over who is included in “We the People.” Throughout American history, would-be authoritarians have used two strategies to gain and hold power: subverting elections and undermining the tax system. 

Vanessa Williamson is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings, and a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. She studies taxation and democracy in America. Her latest book, “The Price of Democracy,” reveals the revolutionary power of taxation in American history (Basic Books, November 2025). She is also the author of “Read My Lips: Why Americans Are Proud to Pay Taxes,” and with Harvard professor Theda Skocpol, “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.” She has written on school segregation, tax opinion, and tax politics in the Washington Post; about the Tea Party, anti-union legislation and voter registration at income tax filing in the New York Times; about taxpayer citizenship in the Atlantic; about philanthropy and austerity and white supremacy in Dissent; and about democracy and organizing for Teen Vogue. She has discussed her research on NPR’s “Marketplace”, C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal”, CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS”, CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, and MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.” She received her Ph.D. in social policy from Harvard University.