The US has a fertility crisis, but we can easily fix it.
The fertility rate in the US is below replacement rate, at 1.78 births per woman in 2023. This is the lowest rate on record. This means that if we continue on, the US population will progressively get older and smaller.
This will dramatically reduce the size of our economy, decrease innovation, and will burden younger folks with the costs and time associated with taking care of the elderly.
There will be too much time and money spent on keeping society from collapsing vs investing time and money to grow it. We will all die pooping our pants with almost no one in sight.
It will suck. Really bad.
However, the fix is much simpler than we all realize, and all we have to do is cater to our primal instincts by putting in place incentives that will tickle it.
One of our largest primal instincts is the need for safety and security. In today's world, the single biggest tool that we use to achieve that is money.
Money for food, shelter, water, transportation. You name it.
Money rules everything.
Knowing this, all we would have to do is creative an incentive that will pay people to have children.
"Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome", the great late Charlie Munger once said.
And thus, my very simple proposal to increase the fertility rate in the US, which will in turn ensure the country will continue to grow and flourish, is the following:
Increase the child tax credit from $2,000 to $6,500 per child.
This will make it so that the bottom 80% of income earners in the US that raise at least 3 children will pay $0 in federal taxes. This equals to roughly 84 million families.
Having 3 children will ensure that population growth continues. Plus, the more kids folks wanna have, the more they'll benefit, especially as they continue to work to create more value.
Now, let's get into the numbers to see how much this would cost.
See below breakdown of federal taxes paid by each family income bracket, broken down by 20% segments (bottom 20%, second 20%, etc.)
This program, as long as folks are having 3 children, will cost $611 billion to fund the bottom 80%, and another $334B from the top 20%.
This totals to $946 Billion.
Let's look at how the US Government spends its money today so we can gauge how realistic this is. Here's a breakdown of the US Government expenses in 2023:
To summarize:
- $3.8 Trillion in Mandatory expenses (set by law like Social Security, Medicare, etc.)
- $1.7 Trillion in Discretionary (fluctuates annually based on lawmaker approvals)
- $659 Billion in Interest payments on US debt
Now, here's a breakdown of where the US gets its tax revenue from to fund all these programs. These are the taxes all of us pay, including corporations:
$2.2T of the $4.4T in revenue comes from individual taxes, which this program would impact directly. These taxes would essentially be cut in half, lowering our total tax revenue from $4.4T to $3.5T.
However, even in our current state, we needed to take borrow $1.7 TRILLION in debt to pay for the shortfall vs the US budget. We made $4.4 trillion in revenue, yet we spent $6.1 trillion.
We overspent by the same amount as our Discretionary spending, and our interest payments are about to become as big as our Defense budget.
Cutting another $946 billion in revenue would increase the deficit by the same amount, making it $2.7 Trillion. However, here's my very simply solution to not only keep the deficit the same with this new program, but likely lowering it over time:
Cut the US Federal Budget of $6.1 Trillion by 20% across the board, down to $4.88 Trillion. This would instantly save $1.22 trillion per year in expenses, fully funding this $946 Billion program within the current budget parameters, and additionally lowering our deficit from $1.7 Trillion to $1.4 Trillion.
New Revenue: $3.5 Trillion (down 20%)
New Expenses: $$4.88 Trillion (down 20%)
New Deficit: $1.4 Trillion (down 18%)
This proposal is based on the following premise:
- This is the most existential issue facing our country - period. It's not our eternal rivalry with Russia, our battle with China's ambitions with Taiwan, or our battle with terrorists. It's us dying out because we aren't making enough of us. Period. Full stop. Not even close.
- The US government is incredibly bloated and inefficient. You know this. I know this. People who work in Government know this. Our politicians know this. To think that we couldn't somehow keep the lights on and remove decades of dead weight by cutting expenses by 20% is silly. Elon Musk removed 85%+ of Twitter, and we're all still here folks... and private companies are already more efficient than Government entities. Imagine how much waste there is.
- The massive boom in population growth in the US would bring with it a gigantic economic boom. More people = more demand. More demand = more business volume. More business volume = more money spent. More money spent = more taxes paid. It will start a giant flywheel of revenue for the US government. This might even help us offset our deficit in the long term.
- It will strategically place the US as the only Western Nation that has a booming population, instead of one that has a shrinking one. Every single major western economy, including some eastern ones like China, are fighting this literal death spiral.
- People will finally go back to feeling like starting a family isn't a giant financial burden on their everyday lives, and the population would regain trust in the Government once again, due to its incentives being fully aligned with those of the people. Have more kids = make more money. Super simple.
- The simplicity of this proposal will make it easier for the American public to buy in. No complicated loopholes. No catering to an income bracket or another. No special interests involved. A simple alignment of incentives between the US government and the American public.
Let me know what you think.
@SaffronSunanda Only 11% are Hindus. You can take all of them whoever is supporting you creating this fake narrative. Everyone else are Bangladeshis and they may remain.
@elonmusk Right after the Hindu guy left the throne, suddenly there is an hatred towards the Muslims. Did Sunak create the whole act during his regime?
@awbissaka, you will be heavily missed. I wish you good luck for the future and inshallah you will prove yourself even bigger than other could imagine. Your dribbling has improved, your cross improved and you already had the lethal spider slides. Good luck again!
Asna Tabassum can’t be found on social media for the past few days. Such a graceful and brilliant person she is. I hope she isn’t among the list of arrested pupil.
Why do I have a feeling that the 300 missiles were just a drill run by @IDF but showcased in the name of Iran, only to justify USA’s next oil base attack?