Good tax policy --> Good democracy

I'm just halfway through Ken Burns' big-think documentary The American Revolution and there's plenty about the era I didn't know. I had the same feeling reading The Price of Democracy, a new work by Vanessa Williamson that covers some of the same ground and lays out how many U.S. political questions are tax battles at heart.
    
You can read my interview with Williamson via the link below. I've also got links to stories about how Facebook deals with scam ad revenue from China and a spate of developments around the proxy adviser industry.
        
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Ahead of the last U.S. presidential election in 2024, I imagined a public debate where candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden would be questioned on fiscal policy by accountants and actuaries. If ever a future election features such a panel, it should include Vanessa Williamson.
    
She is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank and author of "The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History," which traces how tax policy questions tracked and shaped broader competitions for power ever since the American Revolution, which turns 250 years old next year. (say it with me: "Semiquincentennial")
    
I spoke with Williamson this week about the lessons she sees for current revenue debates. Where Williamson is coming from: she worries about growing inequality and says Republicans have become "a very extreme anti-tax party" but faults lefties for not stressing the virtues of taxpaying.
    
You can read our Q&A and watch a video from our interview by clicking the button below. 

Lithograph by "Sarony & Major" from the U.S. Library of Congress, c 1846.

After China blocked Western social media within its borders, Zuckerberg lobbied for access. He and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke at a 2015 U.S. gathering. REUTERS/Ted S. Warren

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