Debate watchers want answers on immigration, congressional pay

Fox News Channel has already hosted a presidential debate this year, and it was barely more than a week ago that Republican candidates shared a stage in Florida.

In order to mix things up for this, the sixth meeting of GOP hopefuls in the 2012 cycle, Fox has teamed up with Google for what they promise will be the most interactive candidate forum to date.

Tens of thousands of questions have been submitted by users of the search engine giant, the best of which are expected to be put to the candidates in Orlando Thursday night.

Good thing, too: With the field more or less set, there are only so many ways to try and force the candidates off their talking points and onto new ground since the most recent debate.

Here, as provided by Google, are the most popular and hottest questions for Thursday night’s tilt (note: not all have been vetted by the site for accuracy):

1. Immigration: “With so many people waiting years if not decades to enter this country legally, why do we give illegals so many benefits, like free health care, schooling, and in-state-tution while denying these things to American citizens and legal residents?”

2. Government Spending & Debt: “Would you favor repealing the golden parachute retirement benefits that Congress now enjoys and make them subject to Social Security and Medicare just like everyone else?”

3. Government Spending & Debt: “On 10/8/10, IBM offered the President, at no charge, their services to uncover $900 billion in waste and fraud in Medicare. President Obama turned them down. How would you have reacted?”

4. Government Spending & Debt: “Members of Congress get paid 15,000 a month after only one term for the rest of their life. Wouldn’t it be just and save the US a lot of money if we cut the Congress’s paychecks?”

5. Jobs & Economy: “In the last debate a young man asked the question, “of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think that I deserve to keep?” That question was never answered. Can any of you directly answer that question?”

6. Other: “Americans are concerned about the size of the fed gov’t and its infringement on state rights. How will you restore the 10th Amend., hold the fed gov’t only to those enumerated powers in the Constitution, and allow states to govern themselves?”

7. Social Issues: “Why does America give away our citizenship? When a child is born here it should have to have a least one parent that is here legally or a US citizen before citizenship is just automatically given. Do you agree?”

8. Social Issues: “Do you believe that elected officials should be held to the same laws passed for the citizenry?”

9. Immigration: “Barack Obama decreed without congressional approval that hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens will receive a reprieve from deportation. Many members of Congress say this is a backdoor Amnesty. As President, will you rescind this order?”

10. Government Spending & Debt: “Why does the US Government pay a private corporation called the Federal Reserve interest on money that the Government could make itself and save the interest?”