In his Washington Post op-ed today on the implications of the Census Bureau's new population projections, the Center's Director of Research, Steve Camarota, briefly touched on an issue that doesn't get enough attention in the right. He notes that the 135 million-person increase in our population projected between now and 2050 (three-quarters of it engineered by the federal immigration program) "would have implications for the size and scope of government; more densely settled societies almost always are more heavily regulated societies." Other things being equal, more people in the same space is going to mean more rules, more bureaucrats, more taxes, more government. In my book I compare Wyoming and California in this regard, but how about two other jurisdictions picked at random; where does the State boss people around more — Alaska or Chicago? And this isn't about babies — among the native-born, fertility is about at replacement-level, and even eliminating some of the government burdens on parents, though just, wouldn't change that much. Most of the 106 million additional cars we'll have on our roads in 42 years will have been placed there by the immigration policies of Congress and the White House, not through the individual choices of Americans. As Steve writes, "It's important to understand that the new projections show us one possible future. We must decide as a country if this is the future we want."
