The Consumer Citizen and Consumer Fairness

Abstract

Consumer fairness matters for public opinion. Taxpayer receipts, despite the hopes of those who championed them, do not improve trust in government nor affect attitudes toward taxing and spending. Instead, consumer fairness can be used to change attitudes toward government. This chapter introduces the idea of “alignability”; this idea proposes that people want either (a) the amount they pay government, in the form of taxes, to roughly align with the value of the benefits they receive in return (cost-benefit alignability), or (b) the use of their tax money to align with the source of its collection (source-use alignability). Multiple experiments, conducted online and once in person, make clear how alignability can affect attitudes toward taxation. Alignability can affect attitudes toward taxes in general, as well as attitudes toward earmarked taxes specifically.