America, 300 Million Strong

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.

This article appeared in the McClatchy-Tribune News Service on October 11, 2006

Sure there are people who grew up on welfare who are successful, but it's the exception, not the rule. Our large cities all have large and growing populations of 3rd, 4th, and 5th generation welfare recipients. And they reproduce early and often.

I'm not in favor of any illegal immigration. When a nation is economically successful and maintains a huge handout system, it becomes a magnet for illegal immigrants. Aside from the huge strain on our country, it does nothing to improve the long term situation in the countries they're coming from. Germans are no exception. As I pointed out, the shortage of skilled American workers is an artificial consequence of the creeping socialism which infects our country. Huge taxes are imposed which maintain schools that turn out poorly educated students, and people at the low end of the economic ladder are incentivized to stay on welfare because of all the food, housing, and medical care handouts. Who wants to do the strenuous manual labor that many illegal Mexican immigrants do, when you can stay in your temperature-controlled home, eating junk food and watching TV, all at taxpayer expense? We don't have a shortage of low-level workers, we have an expensive system of disincentivizing them to work, and incentivizing them to have babies who will be raised in a no-work-ethic household. I don't want to have my hard-earned money going to support these idiotic schemes, and then be told that the solution their dismal failure is to import workers from other countries, while the US welfare rolls and public school budgets continue to swell. When we are no longer be taxed to support a non-productive underclass, then let businesses import all the workers they like -- legally. Until then, businesses should feel the same pressure that individuals do, to call a halt to tax-and-spend schemes that yield no reward. If they're allowed to circumvent a lot of that pressure by importing workers on an unlimited basis, they'll continue to bankroll the campaigns of tax-and-spend politicians.

Overpopulation BREEDS tyrannical government. Nobody can afford to think about anything except how to get enough food to get through the day, and the desperate masses are always eager to believe the promises of tyrannical leaders. Look at Russia/Soviet Union: in the early 20th century there were hungry masses of peasants, all with large broods of children to feed, and they supported the Communist takeover with all its empty promises; by the late 20th century, they'd all but stopped reproducing and next thing you know Communism was out. Same pattern is being followed in China: starving masses embrace communism, under pressure from government which can't find any other way to deliver to the promised improvements in standard of living, the masses, go along with a draconian birth control program; in time, the standard of living improves, and the adults who grew up as only children or one of two, and aren't starving, have the wherewithal to start breaking down the communist tyranny. The rise of Germany's Third Reich was preceded by very rapid population growth, and an accompanying drop in standard of living. Good luck finding an example of a tyrannical government coming to power in a country which didn't have a high birth rate with a dropping standard of living.

High population density favors Democrats a lot more than Republicans.

2004 Election Red and Blue States

Rank, State, Population density (per sq. mi)

1 New Jersey 1,134.4
2 Rhode Island 1,003.2
3 Massachusetts 809.8
4 Connecticut 702.9
5 Maryland 541.9
6 New York 501.9
7 Delaware 401.1
8 Florida 296.4
9 Ohio 277.3
10 Pennsylvania 274.0
11 Illinois 223.4
12 California 217.1
13 Hawaii 188.6 72.83
14 Virginia 178.8
15 Michigan 175.0
16 Indiana 169.5
17 North Carolina 165.2
18 Georgia 141.4
19 Tennessee 138.0
20 New Hampshire 137.8
21 South Carolina 133.2
22 Louisiana 102.6
23 Kentucky 101.7
24 Wisconsin 98.8
25 Washington 88.6
26 Alabama 87.6
27 Missouri 81.2
28 Texas 79.6
29 West Virginia 75.1
30 Vermont 65.8
31 Minnesota 61.8
32 Mississippi 60.6
33 Iowa 52.4
34 Arkansas 51.3
35 Oklahoma 50.3
36 Arizona 45.2
37 Colorado 41.5
38 Maine 41.3
39 Oregon 35.6
40 Kansas 32.9
41 Utah 27.2
42 Nebraska 22.3
43 Nevada 18.2
44 Idaho 15.6
45 New Mexico 15.0
46 South Dakota 9.9
47 North Dakota 9.3
48 Montana 6.2
49 Wyoming 5.1
50 Alaska 1.1

I'm not suggesting that EVERYBODY should live out in the country on several acres, but the sort of huge population scenarios that many people promote as perfectly fine involve NOBODY living that way, and nobody ever having visited such a home or known anyone who grew up in or lived in such a home. I don't think they're appreciating the mindset shift that would accompany that.

In one of the books about the Wall Street excesses of the 1980s with the downfall of Michael Milken and others who were banned from the securities industry (and in many cases served prison time), there's a little anecdote about one of these guys who moves with his family to another state, to a house in the suburbs. His young son, about 5 or 6, is confused as they approach and enter their new front door: "Where's the doorman?", he asked. This child had not only never lived in a place where people open the front door of the building they live in all by themselves, but he'd never known anyone who did since all his and his parents' friends lived in "doorman buildings", and he had no idea that such a thing was possible. At least with current population levels, he was bound to make this discovery sooner or later, but I'd hate to see our country become the sort of place where most children would never become aware of such lifestyles.

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