"Now more than ever, we're short of workers, we have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we're going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants, the Dreamers and -- all of them. 'Cause our ultimate goal is to help the Dreamers but get a path to citizenship for all 11 million or however many undocumented immigrants."
My preference is to avoid politics in my column whenever possible. Of the 45 columns I have written this year, four of them have focused on politics. But sometimes, in search of 11 million new loyal voters, politics comes blundering down the road like a drunken elephant and smashes into faith-related issues so blatantly that there really is no good choice but to deal with it.
Congratulations, Sen. Chuck Schumer; you singlehandedly made me change my mind about my column for this week with your quote that I began this column with.
It was Wednesday, Nov. 16, when Sen. Schumer made the above ill-conceived statement. As soon as I heard of it, I thought, "There is no way; no one would tee it up that high." But sure enough, he did. And so, as I reach for my driver ...
To begin with, the population of the United States currently stands right at 330 million people. And yet, it could easily be at 393 million if not for this ugly thing called abortion. Sixty-three million innocent Americans have been put to death unjustly through this travesty since Roe v. Wade came into existence up till now. And Sen. Schumer has consistently been one of the loudest voices supporting that heinous violation of "thou shalt not kill." That is a moral issue, a faith issue and now it is also clearly a political/demographic issue. It is always pretty interesting how the "you can't legislate morality" crowd consistently legislates immorality and then looks around, utterly shocked at the unintended fallout.
But in the words of the late Ron Popeil, "Wait, there's more!" The 393 million figure is only if not a single one of those aborted babies ever grew up and had their own children. In 1970, a few years before Roe was enacted, the birth rate was 88.5 births for every 1,000 women. The rate of girls to boys born is pretty close to 50%, normally coming in at 105 boys for every 100 girls. So with roughly 31.5 million baby girls aborted, if those girls lived and started having children at the average age for doing so in 1970, which was 21.4, then starting in 1991, had the birth rate held steady, there would be an additional 2,778,300 Americans each year for the past 31 years, giving us 479,127,300 people. Mind you, when we factor in the 2021 death rate of 9.7 per 1.000, that would knock 269,495.1 off of that yearly rise of 2,778,300, leaving us with just 470,772,952 citizens. But that is still 140,772,952 more than we have today, and therefore 12.79 times bigger than the entire mass of 11 million illegal immigrants that Sen. Schumer seeks to rectify our declining birth rate and solidify his power base with.
The abortion issue is not the only government-induced problem that government is now proposing an even worse government-induced solution for. Not only has abortion been devastating to America, government taxing and spending has been similarly detrimental. According to Pew Research, in 1967, 49% of mothers were stay-at-home mothers. By 2012 that rate had plummeted to 20%. In like measure, where the average age of having a first child was 21.4 years of age, as I mentioned above, that age is now 30 years old in our day. Nearly nine years of childbearing has been largely discarded by our society. And while personal choice certainly plays a role in that, Big Brother has played an oversize role as well.
In 1900, Americans, on average, had a 5.9% tax burden. Tax freedom day for them came on Jan. 22. By 1966 tax freedom day did not come until April 11. As of 2022, it had moved to April 16. Americans spend three more months giving all of their earnings to the government than they did just over a century ago. If Sen. Schumer and anyone else in Washington, D.C., wants to help Americans reverse the declining birth rate, not making it nearly impossible for a family to get by on one income would be an excellent place to start. But, like King Rehoboam in 1 Kings 12, each new election seems to bring a crop of money-hungry pols whose theory of governing is "The last guys made your yoke heavy, and I will make it even worse."
Mind you, government is not the entirety of the problem. The entertainment complex has played a large, negative role as well, glorifying sex outside of marriage while simultaneously mocking and minimizing the traditional nuclear family. Radical climate-change activists have hurt the situation as well, bullying people into having fewer children because they believe having more children hurts the environment. And this is not something I have to Google to learn about. Several years back, I put out a note online asking about vehicles big enough to hold seven to eight people and was instantly bombarded by climate cultists telling me to have fewer children before I ruined the planet. Psalm 127:3-5 tells us that children are a blessing, a heritage from the Lord; green warriors tell us that they are a curse, a scourge from evil humanity.
Chuck Schumer wants to import people from other nations to "fix our declining population." More sensible generations knew that there is a legal, time-tested, really fun methodology for doing that, one that does not require a single illegal immigrant. Every man and woman who is in a land legally should be encouraged to marry, have sex in that marriage, produce lots of children and raise them to do the same. And then all of them should rejoice in the "great future in America" that they are building together and thank the God who made it all possible and made it so enjoyable.
Bo Wagner is pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, North Carolina, a widely traveled evangelist and the author of several books available on Amazon and at wordofhismouth.com. Email him at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.