OK, I'm not a pro on this topic of the Fairtax, but I've heard enough that I'm sold on the idea.....at bare minimum for the simplicity of it. Consumers will spend no matter what, especially if they have more money in their pockets.

As far as the concerns about it stifling consumer spending, I think that the counter-argument from advocates is that manufacturers and distributors pay a butt-load on corporate taxes right now, all of which is built into their pricing. If you remove those taxes, which is part of the plan, you will ease the financial pressure and the cost of doing businesses on those companies. One would naturally be concerned that they would just pocket these added funds and screw the consumer. The counter to that is two-fold based upon our capitalist system. First, if they do choose not to reduce their pricing, then the further desire for more wealth is probably going to drive those businesses to expand operations, ie more jobs and $ into workers pockets. The more plausible outcome will be that the competition in the marketplace will force them to reduce their prices accordingly in order to maintain/gain market-share. If you have five businesses providing the same service/product and they see a 20% drop in their expenses, one of them will undoubtedly drop their prices accordingly in order to gain an edge w/ our savvy consumers. In order to compete, the rest of them will follow suit. The winner is the consumer.

In theory, this reduction in corporate taxes would result in lower costs on goods purchases. That being the case, we'll have no income tax (5 months of pay not going to taxes) and cost of goods purchased will adjust to relieve the pain of increased sales tax. You have a wash on the taxes, but a net gain resulting from the reduced pricing. Sounds damn good to me. The only people that are screwed in this is the IRS......and I say screw them!!!!