Weekend Watchdog

Every Friday in our Weekend Watchdog feature, we post suggested questions for scheduled Sunday guests. You can add your own questions in the comment thread. We'll also include contact information for the shows, so we can let them know what their viewers want asked.

And on Sunday at 4 PM ET, tune in to Air America [1] Radio's "Seder on Sundays" [2] program, where I'll offer the Weekend Watchdog Wrap-Up.

For Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. (Fox News Sunday [3]): You support the veto of expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program to cover nearly 5 million more kids. In your last debate [4], you said: "Another one [the president] should veto is the SCHIP program, which he should say, 'Take the "C" out of, because now it's for everybody, like every other entitlement program.'"

Presumably you were being critical of states that use SCHIP dollars, after receiving waivers from the Bush administration, to help insure low-income adults.

But the bill that was vetoed would have ended that practice, and allowed those low-income adults to be covered through Medicaid.

Since the bill actually addressed your concern, what was the real reason you supported the veto?

For former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass. (CBS' Face The Nation [5]): You are boasting that you were endorsed by Bob Jones III, [6] former president of Bob Jones University.

Jones previously backed a ban on interracial dating [7] on his campus, then later permitted it but only with parental approval [8].

He also said of Catholicism, and your religion of Mormonism: [9] "The diminution of evangelistic enterprise to cults which call themselves Christian, including Catholicism and Mormonism, is frightening."

What does embracing the endorsement of this bigoted man say about you?

For former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark. (Fox News Sunday [3]): You advocate the "FairTax," abolishing the I.R.S. and replacing the federal income tax with a 23% federal sales tax [10], which you say would be revenue-neutral. [11]

But Citizens for Tax Justice [12] report that:

[We] found that in order to maintain current revenue levels, this sales tax would have to be around 50 percent. It is also very regressive. Low-income households would pay more for everything they buy, while the wealthy would hit the jackpot with tax-free capital gains, dividends and interest. We are fairly confident that this proposal will go nowhere when people realize that a house that costs, say, $200,000 would cost $300,000 under this plan.

Conservative economist Bruce Bartlett reports that this proposal originates from the Church of Scientology [13] for the sole purpose of getting the I.R.S. off its back and "in the rush to rid the world of the IRS, the plan's authors neglected some important details." He continues:

Unlike every other sales tax in the world, the FairTax actually applies to everything - every pencil, every tank - the government buys. Unfortunately, the FairTax proposal doesn't take into account this increase in government spending. Thus, it will either provoke a massive cut in federal spending or a massive increase in taxes.

And what about the poor who bear the brunt of this highly regressive tax? The FairTax would track every household's monthly income and then cut checks to minimize the pain, a logistical challenge that will ultimately resemble some welfare state nightmare. What's more, this would cost gobs of money, forcing further cuts in spending ... the FairTax is a crackpot scheme from beginning to end.

How can you become a top-tier presidential candidate when your signature proposal is widely derided as "crackpot?"

***

Email CBS' Face The Nation at ftn@cbsnews.com [14]

Email Fox News Sunday at FNS@foxnews.com [15]

Remember: always be brief, polite and respectful when contacting the media, so our voices will be taken seriously.