The bill itself addresses both issues @Smokin Joe my question to you is would you rather determine what YOUR essentials are yourself or have some goobernment puke do it for you?
I'm not saying determine essentials at any level in government, although States do that with sales tax exemptions now, deciding that the calories in a bag of sugar are not taxable, but the ones in some junk food are.
You want your house to be at 60 degrees all summer and live in the Florida keys? Go for it, no tax on it--it's your house. Want to eat caviar at every meal...why not? no tax. Bigger boobs? no tax. Gasoline (motor fuels, including charging vehicles), can be taxed separately with excise taxes as is done with gas and diesel now.
Here's the rub, and its simple, sooner or later, that money will be spent, on some thing taxable. Big house? ya gotta furnish it, and that's taxable.
Where the government determines essentials is in determining pre/rebates of presumed taxes on essentials. Just don't tax it in the first place, and you won't need those folks to hand out the checks (and eliminate a huge window for fraud).
Obviously, I would rather set my thermostat and not have the government tax that energy I use. I live in a place where winter kills in a matter of hours, most of the folks in Government do not.
