Making America Great Again Requires More Babies

Victor Joecks is a columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

There’s little need to become an interplanetary country if we can’t populate the country we already have.

President Donald Trump’s inaugural address didn’t just include an amazing list of things he wants to do. It cast an aspirational vision for Americans to rally around.

“The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation,” he said. “And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”

That would be incredible. Given all that Elon Musk and SpaceX have done, it even seems possible. From the start, Americans have been exploring, pushing boundaries and creating new settlements. Instead of apologizing for the things that made America great, Trump is embracing them. Trump is proud to be an American, and he wants you to be, too.

But making America—and Mars—great again requires something else. More babies.

Last April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that America’s fertility rate had dropped to a “historic low.” The total fertility rate was 1,616.5 births per 1,000 women. The country needs 2,100 births per 1,000 women to maintain its population. America’s fertility rate “has generally been below replacement since 1971 and consistently below replacement since 2007,” a CDC report stated.

A shrinking population presents major challenges. Even with technological advantages, the country needs young adults to serve in the military. Some of tomorrow’s greatest innovators aren’t being born. As people age, they become more dependent on others and less economically productive. The country’s massive national debt and unfunded pension obligations will exacerbate this demographic problem.

The human cost will be brutal, too. Even though parenting can be exhausting, children bring meaning and purpose. Many will miss out on the chance to become grandparents. Each year, tens of thousands of people die without someone to claim the body. If births keep falling, that number will only increase.

Legal immigration can paper over some of these economic problems. But it isn’t a cure-all. Assimilation doesn’t happen when immigrants arrive in such numbers that they overwhelm the melting pot.