RSVP now to attend In-Person or Online on Zoom
Where: The Open Gov Hub, 1100 13th St. NW, Suite 800, Washington, D.C. 20005 – and online via Zoom.
When: September 22, 2026, 3:00-4:30pm
Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments provided from 4:30pm for in-person attendees.
Speakers to include:
- Sarah Pray, Executive Director of Better Taxes for a Better America
- Vanessa Williamson, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings and a Senior Fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center
- Casey Michel, Director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow with the Center for International Policy
- Zorka Milin, Co-Director, FACT Coalition
Updates will be provided to registrants via email, as well as on FACT’s website. Timely registration for in-person attendees is recommended, as space is limited.
Description
From the very beginnings of American democracy, taxes have been a battleground for the struggles that have defined America and who counts as “We the People.” Today, a new kind of struggle is underway over whether the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations can continue to hide their money and exert political power out of reach of public accountability. The status quo has eroded Americans’ faith in democratic institutions: recent polling by Better Taxes for a Better America shows nearly 2 in 3 Americans see the U.S. tax code as evidence that our democracy isn’t working well, while a separate Brennan Center survey finds more than 9 in 10 voters view corruption as a big problem in U.S. government.
Join the FACT Coalition for a wide-ranging conversation with Vanessa Williamson (Brookings Institution, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center) and Casey Michel (Human Rights Foundation) drawing on their two recent books: Williamson’s The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History and Michel’s forthcoming United States of Oligarchy: How America’s Wealthiest Ally with Dictators, Weaken the U.S., and Destroy Democracy.
Williamson’s work challenges the myth that Americans are instinctively anti-tax, and argues that fair taxation is our most powerful weapon in the ongoing fight for a genuine egalitarian democracy. Michel’s work traces how weak transparency laws have turned the U.S. into a magnet for foreign dirty money, and how that same infrastructure of financial secrecy now shields a domestic oligarchic class as it once shielded foreign kleptocrats.
Together, they’ll explore how we got here and the reforms, coalitions, and historical precedents that show a more transparent and democratic system is both necessary and achievable. Good tax policy and financial transparency are as essential to American democracy as the ballot box itself because a healthy democracy must deliver for ordinary people. This conversation is for anyone who wants to understand the stakes of hidden wealth and leave with real reasons for hope.