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I think it would. I'm starting to get that familiar 'realities are diverging' feeling reading some of the comments on this post.

Other than the options you have suggested to deal with the regressive nature of consumption tax (which seem sensible to me), I thought the Republican tax proposal is essentially to: lower tax on returns to capital (by reducing the corporate tax rate) and institute a value-add consumption tax (in the form of a cash-flow tax).

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The republican proposal equalizes American taxes with much of the rest of the world with respect to imports and exports. Basically, in most countries, goods coming in (imports) are charged VAT while goods going out (exports) get a VAT rebate. Since the USA doesn't do that ATM, goods going into Mexico get VAT applied to them on the Mexican side but do not get rebated on the American side, while Mexican goods coming in get rebates from Mexico but nothing occurs in the USA beyond normal sales tax.

This is a different thing from taxing global profits, which is uniquely American (well, and Eritrea). VAT is something else.

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