Should we set a goal of stabilizing the U.S. population at or below one-third of a billion people?

Demographers anticipate that the U.S.population will approach one-half billion within fifty years. These forecasts are based on current immigration and women's-health-care policies and practices. Unlike the rest of the developed world, which has largely settled into slowing population growth, in the last two decades the U.S. has seen a resurgence in population growth, adding sixty million between 1990 and 2010. The growth we have already undergone, however, pales in comparison to the growth expected in the next five decades. I believe that Americans can solve any problem about which they can come to a consensus, but I also believe that most of our problems will be much harder to solve with population of half-a-billion than one which is not much bigger than our population today.