Bill King, a businessman, politician and lawyer, author of the book “Unapologetically Moderate,” has written a commentary for The Tennessee Star regarding the U.S. Congressional Budget Office’s (“CBO”) revision of U.S. population projections from 1.62 births per woman to 1.60 births per woman, with a fertility rate of 2.1 being necessary to maintain a stable population.
The CBO now projects that natural population growth (births in excess of deaths) will go negative in 2033. By 2055, the CBO expects that the U.S. will have about 800,000 more deaths each year than births, with the wildcard being immigration.
Negative population growth would especially affect Social Security and Medicare benefits, as funding is directly impacted by generational income and the ratio of the working-age population in comparison to the retired population, which impacts the sustainability of such programs.
The Tennessee Star commentary may be read in full HERE.
Interestingly, China has relented on its previous and often stringently-enforced China’s ‘one-child policy’ due to a lack of population growth sufficient to maintain economic and societal stability.
A 2015 BBC article HERE points out that a decades-old government policy in China that limited many families to only one child, with some exceptions allowed, prevented roughly 400 million births.
As China’s population approached one billion in the late 1970s, the government became concerned about what effect this would have on its ambitious plans for economic growth, resulting in what became known as the ‘one-child policy’ – which was enforced by providing financial and employment incentives to those who complied, making contraceptives widely available, fines, forced abortions and mass sterilizations.
In 2013, the rules were changed to allow Chinese couples to have a second child if one parent is an only child.
According to recent reporting by The Associated Press (“AP News”), China’s population has fallen for the last three years and the country is facing both an aging population and an emerging shortage of working age people, with the country’s population declining by 1.39 million persons during 2023.
After the end of the Cultural Revolution and leader Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, Communist bureaucrats began to worry the country’s population was outstripping its ability to feed itself and began implementing a draconian ‘one-child policy’. Women were required to apply for permission to have a child and violators could face forced late-term abortions and birth control procedures, massive fines and the prospect of their child being deprived an identification number, effectively making them non-citizens.
Some believe that China, which now has the world’s second largest economy, will “grow old before it grows rich.”
The AP News article may be read in full HERE.
My brothers and sisters, is it not interesting that we live in a world and societies that have for decades declared the globe to be overpopulated, yet major nations are now concerned that as a result of massive contraception, abortion, delayed and declining marriages, declining numbers of children per family, and even governmental policies and economic factors limiting the decision to have children, have resulted in concerns of insufficient populations to sustain nations?
If we needed more evidence that the wisdom of the world is foolishness and can be very evil, the use of forced abortion and sterilization is it. The sooner we all seek God’s perfect will in our lives and stop leaning on our own understanding, the better it will be for all! As the song goes: “Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world.”
The Bible tells us that God created us in His image and commanded us to have many children:
Genesis 1:27-28 (NKJV)
“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘[b]e fruitful and multiply; fill the earth [emphasis mine] and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
The Bible tells us that God similarly instructed Noah to have children and fill the earth:
Genesis 9:1 (NKJV)
“So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: ‘[b]e fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.’”
The Bible tells us that children are a blessing from the Lord:
Psalm 127:3-5 (NKJV)
“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, [t]he fruit of the womb is a reward.”
And, the Bible tells us how very much Jesus loves the little children, to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs:
Matthew 19:13-14 (Amplified Bible)
Jesus Blesses Little Children
“Then children were brought to Jesus so that He might place His hands on them [for a blessing] and pray; but the disciples reprimanded them. But He said, ‘[l]eave the children alone, and do not forbid them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these [emphasis mine].’”