The Houston Chronicle piece “Immigration and declining birth rate” in the Monday, Aug. 6 edition of the Daily Journal expressed concern about the declining birth rate in the United States. The 2017 Legatum Prosperity Index lists Norway, New Zealand, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden as their top five countries. The average birth rate in these countries is 7.42 per 1,000 people. The bottom five countries — Chad, Afghanistan, Sudan, the Central African Republic and Yemen — have an average of 26.11. Clearly, high birth rates do not produce prosperity. We only need to look at our own history to see the consequences of overpopulation.
The baby boom years (1946-1964) had an average birth rate of 23.8 per 1,000 compare to the 2016 rate of 12.2. As that enormous cohort has begun to retire, it has placed tremendous stress on Social Security and Medicare, not to mention our natural resources.
Gov. Jerry Brown recently stated that “California was never intended to have a population of 40 million people.” I know everything is bigger in Texas, but encouraging the poorest and least educated to have bigger families is irresponsible and a pathway to perpetual poverty.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.