[ninenot]

The consumption tax CAN be helpful. C Corp's will NOT have to pay income tax, which would allow (e.g.) Ford Motor to drop its prices by about 15%.

While consumption in general will be negatively affected by a 23% tax, the volume of imports will be reduced--while at the same time, exports of US-manufactured goods, now free of the cost of US Income Tax, will go up a bit.

While it's probably not fair to state that the consumption tax would be a net POSITIVE for jobs in the USA, it's not likely to hurt them.

[phil_will1]

"While it's probably not fair to state that the consumption tax would be a net POSITIVE for jobs in the USA, it's not likely to hurt them."

Its more than fair to state that a consumption tax would have a net positive impact on US jobs - in fact, its an understatement.

1. Reducing the prices of exports (while maintaining comparable profit margins) by 20 - 30% would significantly impact the demand for our goods in foreign markets.
2. US produced goods would stay about the same in price on an after-tax basis, but imports would increase significantly. Once again, the demand for US produced products in our own country would be substantially greater than it is now.

In addition to price shifts which would significantly increase the demand for US produced goods, shifting to a consumption tax would save several hundred billion $$ per year in compliance costs. Talk about a boost to productivity! There isn't any policy initiative that the federal government could adopt which would have the economic stimulus impact of converting to a consumption tax.