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If you can determine what the essentials are well enough to prebate back the 1/12 of the poverty line amount in taxes paid on them each month, you can damn well exempt the essentials entirely

There are two problems with exemptions:

1. The more income a person has the more they tend to spend including necessities. Consequently wealthier people tend to spend more on these items than poorer people. The result being the wealthy would benefit more from exemptions.

2. Exemptions exist thanks to the thousands of lobbyists who distort the tax code. Exempting certain items will cause lobbyists in other industries to demand exemptions. In the end many items at the very least would be exempt. Fair Tax FAQ #4

We have been here before, but who cares if rich people spend $200 on an ounce of fish eggs while someone else spends $2.00 on a fish sandwich?

Either way, the money will go around the economy and be taxed somewhere else, anyway.

If I shoot a deer, will I be taxed on the meat?

If I raise a feeder calf, and butcher it?

How about chickens? If they lay eggs, do I get to keep and eat them, or do I have to pay tax on them?

Well, if I don't have to pay taxes, people are gonna scream about how that is unfair, because the food isn't used (it is new), and I'm not paying taxes on it.

So no matter what happens, you are going to have to exempt people who produce their own food, (or whatever), anyway, or...You are going to have to find a way to tax that, too.

The basics are simple enough: food, primary residence (shelter), energy for heating, cooling lighting and transportation (you'd still pay taxes on your choice of vehicle), and medical care (which different people will require in differing amounts--there is no way to say what is "fair" for everyone). Spend what you want on them, it is up to you.

Exempt those, with a broad brush, and there is nothing to lobby about.

And forget issuing checks, and even better, forget the totalitarian notion of keeping tabs on every American Citizen, of any age, from cradle to grave on a month to month basis and all the expense which will go with it.