I’ve watched the endless stream of GOP debates and found the moderation to range from poor to middling. The low-water mark being John King allowing Newt Gingrich to savage him. I thought it was a dumb question — just because it was in the news didn’t mean it was relevant — but in failing to defend himself, King lost control of the debate right out of the gate.

Thus, I present my humble list of questions that I would ask if I were moderating. If any network is prepared to hire me for the next debate, I’m ready to go.

1. Governor Romney, you paid a 14% tax rate on income of over $42 million over the last two years. Meanwhile an American making $35,000/year paid 25% of their income in taxes. Under your proposed tax plan, you would maintain this disparity. What do you tell an American making $35,000/year who says you should be paying a 25% tax rate just like them, and not have an 11% tax break?

Obviously the moderator, in this case Wolf Blitzer,will ask some sort of tax question — the story is too big to ignore. But when crafting a good debate question, the moderator needs to study the campaign’s talking points and craft a question that requires the candidate to say something new. Romney’s surrogates have been responding to all questions with the following themes: a) Romney paid all the taxes he was legally required to pay, b) this controversy is about punishing the rich, and c) hey, almost half of Americans pay no taxes at all. By drafting the question to focus not on the law today, but on Romney’s tax proposals the first talking point is invalidated. As for the second point, the media has allowed this talking point by failing to provide specifics in their questions — by focusing the question on “you should pay 25%” as opposed to the vague “you should pay more” the idea that this is about “punishment” sounds silly. Finally, by personalizing the question to a $35,000/year earner prevents a pivot to focus on those poor enough to be exempt from income taxes.

This should be followed up by directing to Gingrich the question of why he feels capital gains rate should be 0% by asking why Romney should have gotten a 25% tax break over an average American.

2. Speaker Gingrich, your tax proposal would drop the capital gains tax rate to 0% which would have excused Governor Romney from paying almost all taxes on the $42 million he earned. Y0u often cite President Reagan as an inspiration — during his Presidency he famously asked crowds “Do you think the Millionaire should pay more in taxes than the bus driver, or less?” and called rules that allow such a disparity “crazy.” Why do you disagree with President Reagan and believe that the tax code should be set up to allow a multimillionaire to pay nothing in taxes while someone working for $35,000/year pays 25% of their income in taxes?

This should be asked of Gingrich, rather than Romney because while Romney supports taxing himself at a lower rate than the average American, he still would pay more absolute dollars in taxes. Under Gingrich’s proposal though the disparity Reagan criticizes would be on full display. This is a harsh and loaded question in a GOP debate because it forces a candidate to publicly break with Reagan. While a moderator should not play favorites, nor should the candidate make the moderator a punching bag. The former Speaker has made the moderator a participant in the debate and he needs to face a tough attack like this to keep him in line.

3. At one time or another, most of you have criticized the Obama campaign for potentially running a $1 billion campaign, but each of you enjoy the support of Super PACs and so far in this election, very wealthy donors are contributing to these groups and running more ads than the official campaigns. Indeed, from time to time some of you have decried these institutions. If elected would you support a constitutional amendment to restore the campaign finance rules that your colleague Senator McCain authored?

Super PACs are getting a lot of attention, but everyone is asking about the fairness of their attacks and who controls them, but no one seems to actually challenge the candidates to say “and we will stop it.” The candidates should be forced to confront campaign financing head-on because Americans seem to be growing more conscious of and concerned about this system.

What questions do think should be asked?