If government spending is growing faster than gross domestic product (GDP), can the resulting deficit problem be solved by:

(A) decreasing the rate of growth of government spending,
(B) increasing tax rates,
(C) decreasing the rate of growth of government spending and increasing tax rates?

If you answered A, you have a strong brain and can go to the head of the class. If you answered B, you have a flaccid brain and will need to repeat the class. I will get back to the C students later.

People with flaccid brains have a hard time understanding the consequences of actions, and they tend to treat variables as constants (e.g., I know how to drive, so I should be able to drive drunk).  They rarely do real cost-benefit analyses or think about the long run.

An example of a flaccid brain is that which occupies the skull of Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, who, in a hysterical reaction to the Gulf oil spill, wants to shut down all offshore drilling.

Outgoing US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is worried about the shape of things to come in US foreign policy. In an interview with Newsweek over the weekend, Gates warned:

"To tell you the truth, that's one of the many reasons it's time for me to retire, because frankly I can't imagine being part of a nation, part of a government... that's being forced to dramatically scale back our engagement with the rest of the world."

What Gates is saying is that he doesn't trust his commander in chief to allocate the resources to preserve America's superpower status. He is saying that he believes that Obama is willing to surrender the US's status as a superpower.

This would be a stunning statement for any defense secretary to make about the policies of a US President. It is especially stunning coming from Gates. Many conservatives hailed Obama's decision to retain Gates as defense secretary as a belated admission that Bush's aggressive counter-terror policies were correct.

These claims ignored the fact that in Bush's last two years in office, with the exception of the surge of troops in Iraq, under the guidance of Gates and then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, US foreign policy veered very far to the Left. As bad as it has been so far under Obama with Gates, it is now going to get much worse without him.

The "Dodd financial reform" bill being considered by the Senate will make it illegal for 99.6 percent of the population to invest in needed new and promising start-up companies.  At the same time, the bill ensures that the 33 largest banks, which control 92 percent of all bank assets, will be required to purchase more federal government debt before giving loans to businesses and individuals.

Quite simply, the government is continuing to practice financial fascism.

The new financial reform bill will make it illegal to invest in a new venture or start-up company for anyone who does not have a liquid net worth of $2.2 million or an annual income of roughly $450,000 if single or $675,000 if married - which rules out all but fewer than 1 percent of the population.

If this passes and is signed into law, Congress and the president will be saying to the American people, "Ninety-nine-plus percent of you are too stupid to know how to invest your own money." They think the rest of us are as irresponsible as they are.

What right do the financial fascists in Washington, who created the world's biggest financial Ponzi schemes (i.e., Social Security and Medicare) and the largest unsustainable debt in history, have to tell more than 99 percent of the rest of us what we can and cannot invest in?

One of the secrets about Western trade with enemy states like Iran is that the Western companies trading with them may also wittingly or unwittingly serve as espionage assets for their home country or for other Western countries.

The boycott drive against states like Iran uses a legalistic framework to deal with complex military challenges. And since the nail doesn't exactly fit the hole, it stands to reason that the damage sanctions can do to military or intelligence operations may in certain circumstances outweigh the benefit they bring to diplomatic operations.

Late last month (5/24), the State Department announced that it was sanctioning the shipping company of Israel's richest family, the Ofer Brothers, for reportedly violating US law by trading with Iran.  Ever since, there has been a deluge of news reports alleging that the Ofer Brother's ships were used by the Mossad and perhaps the IDF to infiltrate and exfiltrate agents into and out of Iran. 

There are number of troubling aspects to this story.

A century ago, if you had told typical citizens of Argentina (which at that time was enjoying the fourth-highest per capita income in the world) that it would decline to become just the 76th richest nation on a per capita basis in 2010, they probably would not have found it believable.

They might have responded, "This could not happen; we are a nation rich in natural resources, with a great climate for agriculture. Our people are well educated and largely descended from European stock. We have property rights, the rule of law and an open free-market economy."

But the fact is, Argentina has been going downhill for eight decades, and it now has one of worst sovereign credit ratings in the entire world - on a par with Pakistan and lower than Bangladesh. Argentina, despite its natural resources and human capital, has managed to throw it all away.

Argentina did not become relatively poor because of having been involved in destructive conflicts. It became poor because it has had a series of both democratically elected leaders and non-elected dictators who never missed an opportunity to make the wrong economic decisions.

No one who broke our laws to enter this country should ever decide who becomes our president, a member of Congress, a governor or mayor, or a member of the local school board. This is the non-negotiable “die line” those who love our country must defend: We cannot permit a huge criminal voting block to determine our future.

And every person who entered this country without our government’s formal permission is a criminal. Period.

Democrat Party operatives embed their public arguments for amnesty for eleven-million illegals in terms of human dignity and decency.  The reality?  Democrat Party support for amnesty for illegals comes down to one word: “Votes.”  For Dems, it's all about a permanent electoral majority - not human dignity.

It is, of course, true that no one loves the tax collector and that taxes are the price we pay for a civil society. But, as with anything else, there are proper and improper taxes and tax collection procedures and methods.

According to news accounts, attacks and threats against IRS personnel are rising, and unfortunately, this trend is likely to continue until there is a fundamental change in our tax laws and collection methods.

People who do not have access to the media and cannot afford expensive tax lawyers sometimes reach such a level of frustration with the IRS that they resort to violent or irrational behavior. IRS officials and workers will say the tax code is not their fault - it is the fault of Congress - and they are only doing their jobs.

It is unambiguously true that the tax code and IRS are creatures of Congress, with all of its self-dealing, corruption, ignorance and incompetence. But this also is true: as was made explicit at the Nuremberg trials, those who carry out orders that they know to be wrong or should know to be wrong are not absolved of personal responsibility.

As I noted on Judge Jeanine Pirro's show this weekend, I reject President Obama's idea that Israel must cede back its territories to the 1967 line.  

Will we now be in the habit of telling our allies what their borders should be? Should Prime Minister Netanyahu suggest we return to our 1845 borders before the annexation of the southwest of the United States during the Mexican-American War? Should we give back parts of Texas, New Mexico, and California?

But the problem is even deeper. In both his State Department speech last Thursday (5/19) and his speech Sunday (5/22) at AIPAC, President Obama made some seemingly specific comments about the Palestinian state that he wants to see created.  He either misspoke or he has even more dangerous plans for our friends in Israel than he is publicly admitting.