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 new book, “The Price of Democracy,” reveals the revolutionary power of taxation in American history. 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. Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe You can also find me: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/ Resources: https://americanpromise.net/ https://redwine.blue/ https://cc4democracy.com/ https://liberalrocks.com/ https://www.commoncause.org/take-action/ https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member © 2026 Heather Cox Richardson. All Rights Reserved. All content in this video is protected by copyright. Reproduction, distribution, or re-uploading, in whole or in part, without prior written consent is prohibited.