Posted on 10/17/2006 11:19:55 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
One day this month an immigrant will arrive or, more likely, a baby will be born who will make the United States a nation of 300 million. This demographic milestone has prompted hand-ringing among environmentalists on the left and immigration opponents on the right, all of whom are misguided. Passing the 300 million mark should be cause for celebration: Never in the history of mankind have so many people lived such free and prosperous lives in one country.
Anti-immigration activists blame newcomers for driving up the population, when in fact most growth is natural. Since 2000, births have averaged 4.05 million a year, and deaths 2.43 million, for an increase of 1.62 million a year. Net immigration (legal and illegal) accounts for another 1.25 million a year, or 43 percent of our population growth.
Immigrants are also blamed for traffic congestion, crowded schools and suburban sprawl in certain states and metropolitan areas. But immigration on average has accounted for only 30 percent of the change in individual state populations since 2000. The biggest driver, again, has been natural growth, which accounts for 40 percent of the growth of the typical state, with the remaining 30 percent driven by migration of Americans from one state to another.
A rising population is entirely consistently with a higher quality of life. Though our population today is four times larger than it was a century ago, we live much longer and better than we did in 1906. Life expectancy at birth has grown from 48 to 78 years, infant mortality rates have plunged, a host of deadly diseases have been conquered, and the air we breathe and the water we drink are far cleaner than when we were a less populous country. Our homes, too, are much bigger, and food is more plentiful than ever. There is no reason why these trends cannot continue as the population rises.
Even at 300 million, the United States is not "overpopulated." We remain a vast country with lots (and lots) of open space. One need only gaze out the window at 30,000 feet while flying cross-country to appreciate how much of America remains rural or unpopulated. We could give every American household an acre of land and still fit all 300 million of us in the states of Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri—with the rest of the country set aside as one giant national park.
Nor is the United States suffering a "population explosion." In fact, our nation's population growth has been slowing in recent decades. Since 1900, population has grown at an average annual rate of 1.31 percent. But in the past 15 years, the growth rate has slowed to 1.16 percent, and since 2000 the rate has slipped to just below 1 percent. Immigrants help America maintain a steady rate of growth.
Population growth does not require bigger government and higher taxes, either. Paying for roads, schools, and medical care are problems today not because we have too many people, but because the government is so heavily involved in providing those services. Notice we never worry about who will pay for the new houses, grocery stores, gas stations, and shopping malls that accompany a growing population. The market supplies those goods and services, efficiently and abundantly, and we eagerly pay for what we get.
Market reforms in health care, education, and transportation would do more to shift the burden away from taxpayers than any misguided efforts to control population growth. And a growing population actually reduces the cost to each individual for national defense and interest on the public debt.
As it has in every previous era, an expanding population confers real blessings on our country. America is unique in the world for its combination of size and wealth. A rising population combined with high productivity per worker magnifies our weight in the global economy and our influence in the world. A larger population creates a larger domestic market, spurring innovation and dynamism, and honing U.S. producers to compete and prosper in the global economy. In contrast, Western Europe, Japan, and Russia face the far more sobering prospect of a demographic implosion.
It would be a gigantic mistake for policymakers to seek to curb birth rates or immigration in a misguided effort to dampen our population growth. As long as America remains the land of the free, a growing population will mean more opportunity and more prosperity for those of us fortunate to count ourselves among the 300 million.
Daniel Griswold is director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies and co-editor of Economic Casualties: How U.S. Foreign Policy Undermines Trade, Growth and Liberty.
This article appeared in the McClatchy-Tribune News Service on October 11, 2006
150 million, or so chicks and I can't find a date for Friday? Pathetic.
And you'd think that in a nation of 300,000,000 people, maybe a hundred or so working together could put together a TV show worth watching.
I have.
"Atlas " Shrugged" comes to mind.
300?
try 270 plus 30 million illegals...
When my wife turned 40, I told her I was thinking of trading her in on two 20s (year olds).
She replied I wasn't wired for 220.
(baddaboom)
Please note: My town is full. Stay out.
I don't give a schnit about your town. I'm perfectly fine up here. :-)
When productive people are having a colossal amount of their production confiscated as taxes, to be redistributed by the government to non-productive people, it's hardly a glowing example of "freedom".
Overpopulation is not a matter of sheer numbers, but of the relationship between numbers and economic activity. Every time somebody has a baby for which they can't afford to independently provide food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and education, socialism takes another step forward, and freedom takes another step backward. When we have such a huge and growing segment of the population that is so dependent on government handouts that eliminating the handouts would clearly lead to massive riots and revolution, we're overpopulated.
Every time I read about another welfare mother whose kid has been beaten to death by her boyfriend, it's accompanied by a mention of the 3, 4, 5, 6 other children she has. And every time I read a leftist MSM sob story about a "hard working" illegal immigrant, the justification given for their illegal activity is the large brood of children they have. But of the hundreds of people I personally know who are paying way more than their share of taxes, most have 0, 1, or 2 children, a few have 3, and a microscopic number have more than 3. Many would like to have more, but aren't willing to dump their kids in the infernal public schools that are filled to the rafters with, and designed to cater to, the offspring of welfare mothers and illegal immigrants -- which they would have to do if they had more children.
Cato needs to do a careful analysis of just what percentage of the US population is actually both free and prosperous. Living on handouts isn't being prosperous, and being forced to fork over hard-earned money for hand-outs isn't being free.
Here's a big Bronx cheer for Daniel T. Griswold. Talk about trying to down play the numbers. After all according to him immigration on average has accounted for only 30 percent of the change in individual state populations since 2000 and that's not supposed be a big deal?!? The medical system in states bordering Mexico are supposed to be closed to collapse in funding and being understaffed to deal with the immigration burden.I suspect Mr. Griswold wrote this piece with a pro "illegal" immigration bias being interjected into it !!!
As I recall, the more self-reliant people usually have guns where that's allowed, so I don't think riots over a lack of handouts will spread very far.
So true. The option for on ordinary family to live comfortably on a few acres in an outer suburban or rural area is gradually vanishing. People who keep putting forward silly calculations of how many acres there are in the US and how we could easily fit a hundreds of millions more in, scare me. Not only do these scenarios leave out massive chunks of reality, but they also seem to imply that rapid population growth can go on forever with no harm to quality of life. As if "proving" that the US could hold a billion people all living in nuclear families on one acre plots, means that that would still be true 2 generations later, after the population had quadrupled due to people having an average of 4 children apiece.
I'm not eager to have my grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow up in a country where experiencing time alone with nature, looking out on hundreds of acres of undeveloped, unpopulated land, is no more possible than seeing a flock of passenger pigeons. We're going to have to stop, so we might as well stop now, while there really is enough for everybody. And we need to get the third world to stop too, because they'll just keep swarming over our borders in ever larger numbers as they keep making more and more of themselves.
It never seems to occur to the more-babies-are-always-better crowd that crowding equals socialism. People lose their sense of self and of family unit, as they are constantly surrounded by and superficially interacting with huge numbers of people, including many they don't know at all. They come to believe that everybody's problems are their own, and that their own problems are everybody else's, because the the dividing line between self and others is pressed out of existence.
Not necessarily. Many of those babies grow up to be productive adults. But that's apparently not good enough for you, since you're putting down hard working immigrants just because they couldn't jump over all the high hurdles to legal immigration.
I had an interesting conversation a few years back with a man in the photocopier servicing industry. He said he couldn't find enough skilled tradesman to service his machines. He knew that there were plenty of them in Germany but the U.S. immigration laws were too restrictive to bring them in. The ridiculous immigration laws you defend are keeping productive people out of the country, and apparently that is fine with you.
Many would like to have more, but aren't willing to dump their kids in the infernal public schools...
Baloney. Most upper middle class Americans could afford to raise many more kids and send them to good schools (moving to a better school district if necessary) but just don't want to spend the time and money required to nurture them properly. They'd rather spend their time and money buying and playing with toys like fancy automobiles and giant screen HD tv's, taking expensive vacations, pursuing another amusements, and/or becoming a bigshot in their field of endeavor.
Most Americans no longer value good parenting much at all. When was the last time anyone was publicly recognized for merely being a great parent?
If it weren't for illegals, it would be around 280 million.
If managed properly, the US could hold a billion people. However, that would likely only be possible if the growth was natural and not immigrant-induced. Some immigration should be encouraged (mainly to replace emigrants), but not as a population growth mechanism.
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