Greg Mankiw recently said "a VAT may be the best of a bunch of bad alternatives." I propose to rather than head further down the spectrum of regressiveness, we move the opposite direction by ending that which is already regressive which would increase revenues and cut spending a combined half a trillion+ per year.
The biggest injustice of sales tax is that it is a regressive tax, that is it taxes lower incomes a higher percentage than upper incomes. Yes the actual tax rate is constant, but as a percentage of income it is greater on those who earn less because the less you earn, the greater a percentage of your income is used for consumption.
Fairness, and justice would be much better served by doing away with the parts of our tax code that are already regressive instead of introducing new regressive taxes. Specifically, end the 106k income cap on Social Security taxes on the employee side, but continue the cap on the employer side (as to not increase the cost of labor thereby increasing unemployment). As it is now you pay 12.4% SS tax on your first 106k of income and 0% SS tax on every dollar over 106k. Ending this would raise an additional $300+ billion/year.
There are spending cuts that should be able to receive broad based support, end programs that "reverse Robin Hood" or redistribute income from the bottom up. Specifically, end lavish public pensions which when combined with SS benefits often exceed the U.S. median full time worker income of 45k/year and bank bailouts whose injustice is without precedent short of pre-revolutionary France. The federal government does a good job of not lumping total pension expenses into a transparent lump sum, but estimates are they exceed $200 billion/year.
You could save half a trillion dollars a year, enough to close the pre-bailout era deficits simply by ending regressive practices that distribute income from the bottom up.
Disclosure: No positions
