[NaturalBornConservative]

The effective tax rate on those making less than $100K is currently between -14% to 8% (minus 14 percent to 8 percent). For those making between $100K and $250K it's around 13%. And, the effective tax rate on those making $1M or more is around 23%. When you throw out deductions and apply a flat rate, you increase everyone's effective tax rate (i.e. total taxes paid as a percentage of gross income). There is a 39% tax bracket, but no one pays anything close to that as a percentage of gross income.

If you like tax increases, then have at it. I prefer lower taxes myself. Each of these crackpots would increase taxes on the middle class, and lower them on the top 1%, which should exclude them on its own. The one's that have raised money under the banner of abolishing the IRS, an impossibility, should be called out as what they are - crackpots.

[Dr. Sivana]

I don’t believe you are including the payroll taxes in those numbers, which is (I believe) 7.65% on both employee and employer side from dollar 1.

I am not going to take your word for it that no one pays at the 39% bracket. If they don’t, I’m not sure how you can say the people in the top brackets are paying less.

Cruz is a devotee to Milton Friedman, whose considered to be anything but a crackpot. Personally, I think Friedman doesn’t take enough of the cultural/societal factors into consideration, as he focuses almost exclusively on dynamism, efficiency and growth on a macro level. But for a starting point, you can do much worse.