On Tuesday, America will have, as an estimate, 300 million persons. Sometime about 2043, America will have 400 million persons. The rapid growth in population we have seen since the 1980s and the more rapid population growth we will see in the next four decades are, almost without exception, good for America. Why? Population growth brings economic growth. More people will require more houses, schools, roads, health care. Meeting these needs pushes prosperity. The new Americans will provide some of the labor to provide these services and utilities. The established labor force will provide the rest.
One of the blessings of population growth is political. It reinforces the Republican strategy for America, and decreases the likelihood of the Democratic strategy. The Republican Party believes that population growth, powered by families, and economic growth, powered by capitalism, provide greater prosperity and economic security for all Americans. Certainly, American history provides overwhelming evidence for this belief. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, believes that prosperity and economic security for all Americans can only come by income redistribution and social policy favoritism for the have-nots. The Democratic Party follows a political strategy of class conflict to enact the laws and policies that mandate redistribution and social favoritism.
The Demcratic Party's strategy was born during a great emergency in American history--the depression of the 1930s. The solutions created to solve that depression, some by Hoover, most by FDR, have long ceased to be the political property of the Democratic Party. For instance, home ownership through private capital, underwritten by the national government, was a New Deal policy that quickly became part of the American political consensus. Similarly, social security is part of the national consensus. There is little possibility that abandonment of the Democratic Party's preferred mode of political operation and policies would lead to dismantling of these integral institutions in American society.
The result of the Republican strategy of growth is social optimism by all peoples and relative cooperation and harmony in the public and civic spheres of life. The outcome of the Democratic strategy is general unhappiness--the politics of envy and social conflict in all spheres. We should all greet the news of the likelihood of population growth with a deep and meaningful sigh of relief.
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