I am feeling like a curmudgeon this a.m. (like most others) so temper my remarks with that.
I believe it (so-called Fair Tax) will pass in some form, but not because it's a step forward for us.
It will pass because despite all the price inflation that we've been through, and corresponding dollar drop, it isn't enough to bail our collective (now there's a pun) butts out from the debt mess the country is in. There is going to have to be an FDR style massive and enforced inflation...
That's where this Fair Tax comes in. How else can you devalue the dollar so quickly and have everybody clamor for it? Just cause a 20+% wage inflation. End of Story.
Yeah, sure prices will drop... RIGHT... when you need 20+% more dollars to buy raw materials and fuel to deliver goods? Give me a break.
Besides, any real "fair" version of a sales tax would be about 2% (locked forever), assessed on everything retail, with no exceptions (even food and water taxed), and collected by States (like their own sales taxes) and forwarded to fedgov. This would be in concert with a gold/metals/some-commodity fixing of the dollar, to stop the Fed tyranny over money supply. The people would have nothing to do with fedgov in the way of collecting or ever being investigated.
Ever see how big the national gross receipts number is? Tell me again why a 20% tax is needed. Oh, because it has exemptions, hoops, and other malarkey, and is just a clean canvas for the IRS v2.0 and politicians to start painting on again.