HH: And the last question is do you support a federal ban on smoking as has been alleged? 

MH: No, I don’t. I support workplace clean air. But a federal ban on smoking would mean that you couldn’t smoke in your own home. I don’t care what people do in their home. But in a workplace, in our state, we passed a law which I’m very proud of, and that said that people have a right to have clean air at the workplace. I did not support a ban just in restaurants and bars because frankly, I think that the problem with that is that you’re punishing the customers. But what you have a right to do is to protect the workers in the same was you do from radon gas and a host of other carcinogens and toxic fumes, which is exactly what tobacco smoke is.  

HH: Well, I understand that from the state side, but I’m talking about the federal lawmakers getting involved in this and imposing on states a uniform standard. Do you…just for the workplace. Do you support federal laws mandating standards for workplace non-smoke environments?  

MH: I personally would on the workplace issue. If there are two or more people, and as long as anyone under the age of 21 worked in that place, there ought to be some protections for them. 

WOLF BLITZER: "Did you support special tuition breaks to children of illegal immigrants?"

GOV. HUCKABEE: "No, it was not special tuition breaks.  What I supported was that people who had been in our schools, who had met all of the academic requirements for a very specific scholarship would be able to get the same scholarship as anybody else because they had been in our schools and part of it they had to apply for citizenship. Now, what's better? Having a person remain a minimum wage worker and be on the subsidy?  Or, is it better that they become a citizen, they get a college education, they become a significant taxpayer, they have shown their academic credentials? And you know what Wolf? You don't punish the child for the crime of the parents."

BLITZER: "Are these children that were born in the United States? If they were they are U.S citizens, and they should get all the benefits as every citizen or were they children who came here with their illegal immigrant parents and as a result just went through the system?"

GOV. HUCKABEE: "Some would have been both. But some of them would have had to have been in our school system through their entire school career in order to qualify for the scholarships. It wasn't that if they got them someone else didn't, because it was available to anybody. Bottom line is that this country doesn't have a history of punishing the child for the sin of the parent. Now, if that causes somebody to want to vote for somebody else for President there are plenty of other people saying let's punish children. I'm sorry. But I think that you punish the crime doer. If the parent committed the crime and came here illegally, I don't have any problem with punishing them."

BLITZER: "So can I just put a finishing touch? Amnesty for the children of illegal immigrants would be OK?"

 GOV. HUCKABEE: "It is not amnesty."

BLITZER: "But you said they could apply for citizenship?"

GOV. HUCKABEE: "Well, here's the thing. It is not an amnesty because the child didn't commit a crime, the child didn't -- when he is 5 years old and comes here in the back of his parents' vehicle, did he commit the crime? That would be the point to be made."

In honor of Halloween, I want to take this opportunity to present the some of the scariest Tax facts, proposals, and possibilities:

-  As of 2001, IRS Regulations contained over 6,752,000 words—a 10% increase since 1995 and over 8 times the total number of words in the King James Bible.

- In 2002, businesses spent an estimated 2.75 billion hours complying with the federal tax system—that’s the equivalent of 1,000 employees working 40-hour weeks for more than 132 years.

- Democrats are on a crash course to increase taxes on dividends from 15% to 44.2%. If the Democrats have their way, be prepared to see more of your retirement savings whisked away by these increased taxes.

- Essentially every part of Charlie Rangel’s (D-NY) “Mother of all Tax Bills” is frightening and bad for America; except of course the repeal of the AMT.

- Democrats have tried three times to triple taxes on tobacco.  This is a punitive measure to pay for the introduction of socialized medicine and make it easier for illegal immigrants to get healthcare in the United States.

- The Phantom Income tax- Businesses of all sizes and sectors could be required to discontinue the use of LIFO (Last-in-First-Out).  They would have eight years to pay the taxes resulting from the forced revaluation of their inventory, even though they would have had no economic income.  The income might be phantom, but the $106 billion in taxes that will be paid and the associated impacts on businesses certainly won’t be.

-The scare on Small Business- First, they will be hit with the 4% surtax on a portion of their income.  Second, many of them will lose the Section 199 manufacturing deduction that lowers taxes on their business income.  And third, this is happening at the same time as incorporated businesses get an across-the-board rate cut, making it even tougher for these small business engines of job-creation to compete. 

Join me here at 8:30 p.m. Eastern as we post live reports from the debate watch event with President Clinton, John Grisham and the winners of our debate watch contest. The debate begins at 9 p.m. Eastern tonight. Watch it on MSNBC.

Last night, on national television, Warren Buffett made the extraordinary announcement that he would like to pay more taxes. According to Mr. Buffett, he currently pays a 17.7% payroll and income tax and claims his situation proves that our tax system favors the rich. Unfortunately, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had facts to counter that theory, showing that the top 1% of U.S. earners account for 39% of the tax revenue.

Now, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard wealthy entrepreneurs and celebrities volunteer for higher taxes. You may remember prominent celebrities making comments in the past advocating that those with means should be able to pay more taxes per year. Regrettably, as of yet, these altruistic individuals haven’t been able to back these grand intentions up.

Well, I have good news.

I will be introducing legislation whimsically titled the “Tax Me More” Act. This bill is very simple. It would allow anyone who wants to pay higher taxes to add the desired amount (no limits!) they would like to pay to their annual tax form. Under the “Tax Me More” Act, Warren Buffett and his friends will have the unique opportunity to pay as much tax as they want without forcing anyone else to continue to feed the beast.

I believe it is high time we allow those individuals that think higher taxes are the answer to America’s problems to put their money where their mouth is.

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Wednesday will nominate Edward Schafer, a former two-term Republican governor from North Dakota, to be his next secretary of agriculture, a senior administration official said.

The failure of her performance was cumulative, however, so only those watching the whole debate would see how weak her evening was. If she loses the nomination, tonight will go down in history as the first step to her defeat — no fatal "Dean Scream" catastrophe, but far from her finest moment, to say the least.