> There are many ways to make consumption taxes not regressive. You can implement refunds up to certain threshold. You can use the revenue to fund services used by lower income families

Every one of those "solutions" is just a patch on the basic problem that consumption taxes are fundamentally regressive.

Go tell someone living paycheque to paycheque that it's okay, you'll get a rebate every quarter for the extra tax they paid, or worse, on their annual tax filing, and tell me how that'll make their household budget actually work.

Honestly, when I read ideas like this, I realize just how massive the disconnect is between the lived experiences of the relatively well off and the working poor...

Except consumption correlates with income and wealth, and it's already not uncommon for states to exempt necessities like food and clothing from taxation, which keeps them affordable without a convoluted bureaucratic system. Implemented correctly, consumption taxes are less regressive than property taxes, which prop up rents and constitute a barrier to home ownership for working class people.

There are arguments to be made against heavily taxing consumption to encourage economic activity, but you're oversimplifying this by disregarding the indirect costs of alternatives and looking for problems instead of solutions. Not that I think the one you commented on is a good one.