Let's discuss taxes, for example: Ted Cruz wants to abolish the IRS, institute a flat tax, and eliminate the estate tax. I'm not omniscient, so I can't speak to Cruz's motivations. However, I can talk about the big picture consequences. Let's discuss each in turn.
First, you need to remember what the IRS does. Their main responsibility is to collect the taxes which are owed, and as part of that responsibility, investigate and prosecute those Americans who fail to pay them. That part of their job is very easy for the vast majority of Americans, roughly 99% of them, because all of their incomes are from conventional employment and financial arrangements: such incomes are collected and reported directly by employers and banks. Curtailing the IRS therefore wouldn't change the situation for working Americans. It would still be impossible for the average working American to avoid paying taxes, but without the IRS, it would be much easier for the wealthiest of Americans. The result would be a society that increasingly values the idle rich, while punishing those who sell their labors. That is an unsustainable situation, as history has repeatedly shown.
Second, a flat tax won't simplify filing taxes for the middle class. The most difficult part of filing US taxes is correctly reporting all of your worldwide accounts, realized capital gains, and all other incomes that don't show up on a W-2. None of those reporting requirements would go away under a flat tax. After that, you have foreign tax deductions, which can't go away under bilateral tax treaties, and then deductions for capital losses, which wouldn't go away because they are properly negative income. So basically it wouldn't change the amount of work at all for middle or upper class people. As for deductions, apart from state income and sales tax, the rest are all either means-tested, so middle class people don't qualify, or it's so small-potatoes that middle class people aren't really affected. If all you want is a big expensive no-op, go hog wild. But if what I wrote here doesn't describe you, or if you qualify for the EITC, well,... you aren't middle class, and you shouldn't support a flat tax. (There's a macroeconomic argument against flat taxes, too, but if you still believe in flat taxes in 2016 you probably won't be convinced by evidence.)
Third, the federal estate tax only affects estates larger than $5,450,000. Large illiquid estates are safe, so it's very easy to get low-interest loans that will cover the taxes until your estate generates income or is liquidated. Eliminating it wouldn't help anybody, but it predictably would allow ever-greater intergenerational wealth transfer, accelerating the already inevitable La Belle Epoque of the United States. Seems like a tremendously unamerican thing to have happen, but that's none of my business.
Like I said, I don't know why Cruz wants these policies. But, none of those policies help employed Americans. Those policies only help people who don't have to work, who don't have to participate in the economy, who inherit money they didn't earn, or have income sources they can hide in other countries. Given that, it's hard to imagine Cruz has America's best interests in mind.
