"Because of the major upheaval to our economy....."
According to Dr. Dale Jorgenson, former chairman of Harvard's economics department, first year GDP growth would exceed 10%. If that is your idea of "economic upheaval", the we can use all we can get! LOL
The major upheval comes from switching from one tax system to the other.
The fair tax will eventually make items cost less to make, and the prices for items will go down. However, companies with inventory get screwed. They paid higher prices to purchase or make those items, and they're suddenly worth considerably less.
Let's go back to real estate. A developer invest many millions of dollars into building a housing development. The fair tax goes into effect and the houses can now be built for 20+ percent less. The developer doesn't even make 20% on the deal if things would have went right to begin with, so they go bankrupt.