Weekly Writers Round-Up: Overpopulation, Taxes, and Trailer Parks

Each week, we’ll be featuring the work of the alumni and current participants of AF’s Writing Fellows Program. A few highlights from the past week are below. For more information on the program, see here. Applications for the fall session are now open!

Betsy DeVos Pulls a Nikki Haley, Tells Conservative Students to Actually Consider Opposing Arguments by Philip Wegmann (Spring 2016) in The Washington Examiner
At a moment when memes sadly double as not-so-meaningful discourse, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos urged conservative students to try engaging with ideas rather than just trolling enemies for a change. A good education, DeVos told the crowd at the High School Leadership Summit hosted by Turning Point USA, means “learning about ideas — and not just the ones you agree with! It’s way more than putting a face or a phrase on a T-shirt”…

How Big of a Problem is Overpopulation? by Chelsea Follett (Summer 2017) in Forbes
Unwarranted panic about overpopulation is a big problem that has led to human rights abuses and much pointless suffering. Consider the long history of overpopulation alarmism, and how the doomsayers’ fears have failed to materialize again and again. Two centuries ago, Thomas Malthus’s Essay on Population warned that out-of-control population growth would deplete resources and bring about widespread famine. His preferred solution was to decrease the birth rate by delaying marriage, but if that didn’t work he endorsed some rather extreme measures to slash the population. To prevent famine, he thought it was morally permissible to “court the return of the plague” by making the poor live in swamps and even to ban “specific remedies for ravaging diseases”…

The Urbanist Case for Trailer Parks by Nolan Gray (Fall 2015) in CityLab
As housing advocates howl for more construction and NIMBYS square off with YIMBYs over density in many cities, state and local leaders find themselves with limited options. Although programs like the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and Section 8 have been successful at increasing affordable housing and defraying rising rents, federal policy is unlikely to provide a comprehensive fix for the mounting housing crisis soon. Cities need to find politically palatable, low-cost ways of adding housing now. Luckily, we already have a source of market-provided housing that’s self-funded, affordable, and efficient. There’s just one snag: In many of the places it’s needed most, it’s illegal…

With the GOP’s Plans For Tax Cuts 2.0, Hope For Fiscal Responsibility Dwindles by John Kristof (Summer 2018) in The Daily Caller
It doesn’t take an economist to realize that current GOP fiscal policy is closer to progressive Keynesianism than conservative Hayekianism. Republicans recently passed a $1.3 trillion spending bill, which will help inflate the deficit to over a trillion dollars by next year. Aside from the deficits in Obama’s first term, this year’s deficit is the highest ever. Contributing to the skyrocketing deficit is hundreds of billions of dollars in increased non-defense federal spending, a political move hardly any GOP members would have endorsed just a few years ago…