Throughout recent operations in Iraq, Congress has sidelined key
proposals for President George W. Bush’s domestic agenda. In fact,
over the past two weeks Congressional discussion over President
Bush’s $87 billion request for military and reconstruction
operations in Iraq has upstaged his more expensive $400 billion
request for the inclusion of a prescription drug benefit in
Medicare.

An article in Sunday’s Washington Post analyzes the impact of
Iraq on the President’s ability to push the domestic issue. It
concludes that the continuation of unresolved problems in Iraq may
prove problematic for prescription drugs and other domestic
priorities.

However, in Friday’s Los Angeles Times, Health and Human
Services Secretary and former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson
insisted that President Bush was “absolutely passionate” about
passing a prescription drug benefit. On the previous day, President
Bush himself requested to have a bill on his desk by November.

While putting this issue on the back burner in recent times,
Congress and President Bush have frequently ignored an even more
important problem within the prescription drug debate. As arguments
over the logistics of a new government entitlement program have
progressed and as the bill now remains in political limbo, both
sides of the aisle have failed to address the related concern of
population trends in the United States.

For several years, prominent figures such as former Vice
President Al Gore have argued for national and international action
against human overpopulation. In fact, a United Nations Summit in
Johannesburg during the summer of 2002 addressed this and other
issues.

However, the unvarnished truth of the matter is that the United
States and other nations in the western world are or will soon be
facing a serious crisis of under population, especially in relation
to social policies regarding senior entitlement programs. A piece
written in December of 2002 by New York Times international
reporter Frank Bruni does an excellent job of exposing this issue
and how Western Europe has already begun to pay the price for a
declining population.

Bruni writes, “While that trend [declining population] has been
evident for many years, its slow-building consequences are now
coming into starker relief, as more Western European countries
acknowledge and take new steps to address the specter of sharply
winnowed and less competitive work forces, surfeits of retirees and
pension systems that will need to be cut back deeply.”

Bruni notes that no country in Western Europe reached a
fertility rate of 2.1, which demographers consider an exact
replenishment of the population, and that the United States had a
2.0 rate, which experts attribute to greater immigration. Perhaps
the most startling statistic was the projection for Italy’s
population. Experts project that by 2050, if current trends hold,
42 percent of Italy’s population will be 60 or older.

In a recent address to the Italian Parliament, Pope John Paul
said that “the crisis of the birthrate” in Italy is a “grave threat
that bears upon the future of this country.” Liberals have
frequently mocked the Catholic Church for promoting family values
and opposing abortion and contraception.

While many will remain unconvinced of the morality behind these
teachings, Western Europe provides an excellent example of their
societal impacts. As in the United States, abortion and divorce are
common throughout Western Europe. Additionally, Bruni notes in his
article, “As for would-be parents, their attachments to leisure
time, conveniences and indulgences do not easily accommodate
multiple children — or sometimes, for that matter, any children at
all.”

As strange as it may seem, European governments, desperate for
relief from their self-inflicted crisis, have begun promoting
families. In many cases, governments have increased tax breaks for
families. In Spain, the government has reduced utility bills for
large families and has worked to clear other financial obstacles
for raising children.

American liberals love to insist that this nation needs to
become more like Europe. As the United States birth rate continues
to hover below the critical threshold, all of us can take an
important lesson from our friends across the Atlantic. If the
decline in families and children continues in the United States,
drastic measures will soon have to follow.

In the not-too-distant past, families took on the
responsibilities of caring for their older relatives. Slowly, but
surely, the American public has insisted that working families pay
Uncle Sam to do this task for them.

As the number of young working families continues to decline,
the government continues to run out of money. Promoting traditional
family values involves political risk and true leadership, but
until President Bush and other policy makers emphasize a revival of
the American family, any other proposal on prescription drugs and
senior entitlements will remain nothing more than an expensive
temporary bandage for the problem.

Mark Baumgardner ([email protected]) is a senior
majoring in electrical engineering.