Essentially there are two things that cause population growth: Births and immigration.
The birth rate in the US is just barely above the replacement level, so it's highly unlikely that we could achieve significant results by limiting births. Even in China, with its draconian one-child policy, the ACTUAL fertility rate is 1.54 whereas ours is 2.06. So even if we believed that our overall population growth was a problem and imposing extreme birth control measures was the correct way to go about it, China's example suggests that it really wouldn't give us that much bang for our buck. To put this in perspective, Canada's fertility rate is about the same as China's, but without the one-child policy. Furthermore, China's one-child policy has had horrendous consequences: There are far more males than females who are born in China, due to the abortion of females. This is going to cause huge problems because all of these extra men are not going to be able to get married, which will have negative effects on China's social stability and the health of its citizens.
Point taken (not that population control may not be necessary at some point in the future though)
The other way we might control our population is through immigration. Most of our population growth comes from immigration, rather than births, and I'm strongly opposed to reducing it. For one thing, the economic costs of doing so would greatly outweigh the economic benefits. As it relates to this issue, shutting off immigration wouldn't even solve the "problem" (if it were a problem) anyway, it would just push it somewhere else.
Personally, if poverty levels were at all related to immigration, I would cut immigration off. The problem is that, in the U.S., people want equal opportunity and living wages. As I understand it, immigrants will usually work for less than a living wage as it would still be better than their country of origin and thus those without jobs that are taken, make it so that fewer American born citizens can find a job with a living wage. This is because, as long as there are people willing to work for less than a living wage, companies will not pay a living wage.
Instead of completely cutting off immigration, I could compromise at enforcing living wages and disallowing hiring immigrants under the table (this is of course only part of a much larger plan).
Finally, I question why the size of our population is a problem in the first place. The United States spans an entire continent and has a mere 300 million people; if anything we are underpopulated. A larger population would allow for more economies of scale in terms of providing human services, would make public transportation much more cost-effective, and would offer additional manpower to solving the world's most pressing issues.
I believe in the right to property at birth (without property tax if that person has no income) .. therefore, you would have to prove to me that there is enough land for every person in the U.S. to live on if they so chose.
Overpopulation is not a problem globally, and certainly not in the United States. There are certain PARTS of the world that are overpopulated like South Asia, but even there the solution is not direct population controls: It's to reduce poverty, reduce infant mortality, improve women's rights, make birth control widely available, and increase education. Virtually every society that has taken these actions has seen its birth rate fall dramatically.
Are you saying that overall, our world population is over 2 per family?
I agree that education is associated with an decrease in population (which is likely in some portion due to learning about birth control). However, as sited before, places that have education are likely to experience less hardship than those without and thus the simple fact that life is not as hard in areas with education could be a contributing factor to reduced birth rates. It makes biological sense and there are many articles and findings that support this idea. The idea is that instinctively, parents hedge their bets when times get tough by having more children in hopes (unconsciously) that they will have at least one child that bears a child that gives them grandchildren and so on. This is why improving infant immortality rates works as well.
I am for improving women's rights; we've made large strides in this, right now, the average single female in young adulthood makes more than the average young single male and as I understand it, most differences between male and female income are due to the most wealthy individuals being male. Therefore, many women make handsome incomes, many more than is suggested in some misleading statistical representations. I.E. The few extremely high income makers at the top (the top 5%) who
are male, throw the statistics off because they make such a disproportionately higher wage. Another factor is that woman take pregnancy leaves which can throw off their career path (there are more factors of course bu I'm getting off topic). So things aren't perfect, but much much better; we have done a good job in this regard.
Still, if immigrants are allowed to take jobs that do not pay minimum wage, I do not see how an influx of immigrants is going to help us - it seems it may only increase our population and as a good portion of our big cities are overpopulated, I do not see how this would help .. ??