I am close to one of those a@%wipes you refer to. I don’t pay too much (under 50,000 per year, family of 5 most of those years). I support the fair tax. I know the merits of it, and find it to be the most fair way to get ALL people to pay taxes, including drug dealers, prostitutes, those who live on gambling revenue, royalties and most importantly only pay capital gains.
I support it because I know that if structured properly, just the way I shop (good will, thrift stores, used cars, garage sales) for a great deal of what I already buy, those items won’t be taxed. Food and necessities won’t be either, and since that is pretty much what I can afford to buy, I will be ok.
It would encourage saving and stop this consumerism driven mentality of buying more bigger and better before the old is no good, just for appearence sake, and SS would become irrelevant because of it except for the poorest of the poor, as it was meant to be. Please don’t paint all the poor with one brush stroke.........
Which will increase the demand for good quality used goods, which will result in price increases. In fact, absent the 'Fair Tax', a used item could cost as much as a new one and be siginficantly cheaper because there is no tax. Frugal will not be the same, cheap will be a thing of the past.
Food and necessities won’t be either, and since that is pretty much what I can afford to buy, I will be ok.
It has been my understanding that all goods and services, including, food, energy, medical care, medicine, etc, will be taxed under the Fair Tax. That is one of the reasons I am so adamantly opposed to it, as not everyone requires the "poverty level" amount of these to simply stay alive. So the "prebate", the 'refund' of the taxes to be paid on the average poverty level cost of such goods and services will come no where close to rebating the tax on cancer treatments, heat in a severe northern winter, air conditioning in a Texas heat wave, medication for a transplant patient (or the operation), emergency trauma care (and follow up treatment and therapy) for the mom who got hit by some drunk in a pickup truck...
In short, instead of allowing deductions from income for these items, the tax will hit those who need them harder.
That's just wrong, I don't care who you are.