Kerby Anderson
John Stossel says the problem is “bad laws.” Rafael Mangual describes it as the “overcriminalization of America.” Both are talking about the same problem and teamed up to produce a video that highlights an issue that needs to be addressed.
To put it simply, we have too many laws on the books, many of which are outdated and need to be removed. For example, there is a law in South Carolina that bans 18-year-olds from playing pinball. Taking a rake from New York to New Jersey is actually a federal crime.
Stossel pushes back on some of the examples in the video by pointing out that nobody goes to jail for silly or outdated laws. Mangual responds, “That doesn’t mean that it’s not a problem.” Compliance takes time, money, and effort. He then provides an example where people were prosecuted.
A woman was prosecuted for sheltering animals during a hurricane. She said she was just trying to make sure these poor animals weren’t drowning. But North Carolina prosecutors filed criminal charges against her for practicing veterinarian medicine without a license.
In Kentucky, one man was giving eyeglasses to needy people who could not afford eye doctors. But the state officials told him that his act of compassion was a crime.
In these cases, you can see that part of the problem is that established businesses are using existing laws or getting other laws passed so they can push out competition. They have lobbyists and can use laws and bureaucratic regulations to give them a market advantage.
The bigger issue is that we have too many laws on the books. People commit crimes nearly every day without even knowing that they are doing so. State legislators need to focus some of their attention on existing laws that are outdated and unnecessary. Before they pass new laws, they should repeal the laws that we no longer need.

Kerby Anderson
Members of a very popular South Korean boy band were denied draft exemptions even though it would reduce revenue to the country. Why? Because there aren’t enough boys available to serve in the military. Lyman Stone uses this illustration to highlight the extremely low birth rate in South Korea.
But that country is just one of many examples of what has become a global birth dearth. Fertility rates have been declining in all the developed countries of the world. The US figures are better than in many countries in Europe and Asia, but still illustrate the decline. Fertility rates in this country declined from 2.12 children per woman in 2006 to just 1.72 today. The figure might even drop lower if we hit another recession.
Although legalized abortion, contraception, and a down economy are often cited for the reasons for lower fertility, those factors only explain part of the decline. The US first reached birth rates around two children per woman during the Roaring Twenties, not during the Great Depression and long before contraceptive access was readily available.
Modern economies depend on various transfers of wealth across generations. The obvious examples are Social Security and other so-called entitlement programs. An older generation also expects the younger generation to buy their houses and other assets. But that is not happening. Even the trade deficit is due in part to the fact that there are more assets than there are buyers to purchase them.
The solution, it seems, is not to pass government policies that try to make people want to have children. The best that can be done would be to eliminate government policies that currently penalize couples with children. At the least, government should reduce the financial barriers for parents who want to bring kids into the world.