My name is Ellen Saracini. On September 11th, I lost my husband Victor, the Captain of United Airlines Flight 175. Needless to say, the barbaric events of that day were a life-changer not only for the nation, but also for my daughters and me.

While, of course, we wish we could undo the tragedy of that day, the one silver lining to our suffering has been the many friends who have rallied around us and supported us for nearly the past twelve years. One of them is Michael Smerconish.

You know Michael from his radio, television and print work. I know Michael as a personal friend as well as a benefactor of the official Pennsylvania monument to those we lost on 9/11 – the Garden of Reflection 9-11 Memorial, located in Bucks County.

The first of Michael’s five published books was titled Flying Blind: How Political Correctness Continues to Jeopardize Airline Safety Post 9/11. Michael did not accept a dime for writing that book. He gave 100% of his proceeds to the Garden. (Few people appreciate that of the five books he has published, he has donated the proceeds of three of them to charity, and two of those charities are 9/11 related!)

Moreover, when two years ago, we required new roadway signage for the Garden, Michael and his wife Lavinia graciously opened their home for a Garden fundraiser and exceeded the amount we then required. As a result of his ongoing generosity, Michael has become the Garden’s single largest donor. Now, we’d like to say thank you to him.

Will you please consider supporting our mutual friend, Michael, and the Garden of Reflection, at an upcoming golf outing on July 22nd?

Our 9/11 Memorial Golf Classic Committee has unanimously decided to honor Michael for keeping alive the spirit of our loved ones who were killed on 9/11.

We want to formally and officially thank him for tirelessly showing great support for the Garden, demonstrating the care and need of friends to support the Garden, raising awareness about the Garden among new friends and media, and providing opportunities for others to sponsor the operation and maintenance of the Garden.

You can be there – on July 22, 2013 – at Spring Mill Country Club in Ivyland, Pennsylvania. Or you can support him from afar.

The ongoing operation and maintenance costs of The Garden of Reflection are funded completely by private donations and philanthropy. In order to maintain the beauty and serenity of the Garden as a free- to- the- public State Landmark, we hold fund-raising events throughout the year. The annual Golf Classic is our most successful fund-raiser. Each year we ask the business community to participate through sponsorships and/or donating items of interest for our silent auction or our live auction. All the forms and sponsorship opportunities are listed on our website www.9-11MemorialGarden.org by clicking on Events then Golf Classic.

For more information, download the attached brochure. To download PDF – Click Here >

The golf classic will begin with a shotgun start at 12:30 p.m. followed by cocktails, dinner and our silent and live auctions. During dinner we will make the presentation of the award to Michael and he will speak.

There are several ways for you to be supportive. You can come and golf and stay for dinner. You can come only for dinner. You can place Ad in our program or support with a sponsorship. Or, you can just send a check.

To place an ad in our program – Click Here >

For more information, see the brochure (Click Here>). There is also credit card information on the sponsorship form.

All the forms can be downloaded from our website: www.9-11MemorialGarden.org Go to events and see the golf classic.

Checks can be sent to:
Garden of Reflection
1460 Heather Circle
Yardley, Pa 19067

And, anyone can email me at ellensaracini@gmail.com

The Garden of Reflection is an all volunteer 501(c)3 organization. All net proceeds from our fundraising efforts go to our “Remembrance Fund” endowment to preserve The 9-11 Memorial Garden of Reflection.

It is vitally important that we maintain the integrity of this September 11th Memorial, ensuring that our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can remember, reflect, and experience the meaning of the innocent lives lost on that day.

Sincerely yours,

Ellen Saracini
Chair, Garden of Reflection

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Spirited discussions of government, politics and current events without predictable left/right bias. Guests from every political party are welcome, and listeners are encouraged to debate and challenge opinions without being shut down.

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Nationally syndicated radio host, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and MSNBC contributor Michael Smerconish conducted his 7th interview with President Barack Obama – Friday, October 26th 2012 – in the Oval Office.

The discussion aired on The Michael Smerconish Program, which is delivered live between 12-3PM ET weekdays.

The Michael Smerconish Program is broadcast throughout the country, including Philadelphia, Boston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Tampa and Dallas. (The program airs in seven of the nine states that pundits believe will determine the outcome of the election.) In August of 2012, Talkers Magazine named Smerconish the 10th Most Listened to program in the country.

Smerconish was the first radio broadcaster invited to conduct a presidential interview inside the White House after the election of President Obama. He has previously interviewed Barack Obama on the following dates:

March 21st 2008

April 20th 2008

October 9th 2008

August 20th 2009

October 27th 2010

September 30th 2011

Each of these conversations was civil and substantive, covering a wide range of domestic and foreign issues.

Smerconish was a lifelong Republican (and a sub-cabinet level appointee in the Administration of George H.W. Bush), when he broke party ranks in 2008 and endorsed Senator Obama for President. He signaled his decision in a published, 5,000 word essay, explaining that a key factor was his belief that the hunt for bin Laden had been outsourced by the Bush Administration to the Pakistanis. He is now a registered Independent.

Smerconish has previously questioned President Obama extensively on the hunt for bin Laden, including in Pakistan – a focus of Michael’s long before anyone had heard of Abbottobad.

Here are some excerpts from those conversations.

1. March 21st 2008 – Senator Obama told Michael:

“Senator Clinton, Senator McCain and George Bush all suggested I had said something wrong when I said we should be going after bin Laden and high value targets and if we’ve got them in our sights we should ask for Pakistan’s cooperation, we should ask Pakistan to take them out but if they don’t we shouldn’t need permission to go after somebody or folks that killed 3,000 Americans.”

2. Sunday April 20th 2008

Smerconish: Listen, when we were last together you know that I was pleased with what you had to say about redirecting our efforts toward al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Obama: Right.

Smerconish: And that issue is even more serious today then it was a few weeks ago. New York Times front page Saturday, listen to this, this is the Times talking… they say that there’s a “recurring problem for the White House: that the place where the terrorist threat is most acute is the place where American forces are most restricted from acting.” What’s going to be the approach relative to Pakistan and those tribal regions?

Obama: Well I think what we have to do is first of all establish a relationship with the new government. The problem we’ve got is that we’ve backed Mursharaff so heavily in Pakistan that the incoming democratically elected Parliament there mistrusts us. We’ve got to establish some new relationships, indicate to them that we’re supportive of democracy, but insist that we’ve got to go after these terrorists that it’s a threat to democracy in Pakistan and rule of law in Pakistan and stability in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan and long term threat to America. I’ve been very clear that if we see targets in Pakistan that we can take out with drone missiles and use the predators that have been so effective then I think we’ve got to do so. But, I think what’s clear from the New York Times story and what I’ve learned talking to forces on the ground is that unless we can really pin down some of these Taliban fighters who flee into the Pakistan territories, we’re going to continue to have instability and al Qaeda is gonna continue to have a safe haven and that’s not acceptable.

Smerconish: Are you prepared to stop writing that check if in fact you’re not satisfied…

Obama: Absolutely. Absolutely. Look, Musharaff was receiving billions of dollars and not doing much with it. Now I want to ramp up aid to Pakistan when it comes to building schools that teach math and science instead of hatred of Americans. I want to ramp up aid that helps farmers become self sufficient. I want to make sure that not just in Pakistan, but Afghanistan, people have opportunities to get out of poverty.

When it comes to military aid, we should be propping up Pak military when they’re focused on a possible war with India and ignoring the very immediate and real threat of militants who are in their territories. Our aid has to be in some ways contingent on them making a serious effort.

Smerconish: I’ve had any number of conversations with suburbanites from the Philadelphia suburbs who say “I don’t know, this Obama, I’m concerned he’s going to be weak on the War on Terror because he wants to get us out of Iraq.” And what I’ve tried to explain is that you’re talking about a redirection of effort to go after those who really were responsible for September 11.

Obama: Absolutely! Look, Iraq has been the biggest strategic error that we could have made. I mean, not only have we diverted resources that should have been used to pin down bin Laden and al Qaeda but we’ve actually increased the propaganda of al Qaeda in their ability to recruit terrorists and train them in Iraq. And, I think it’s very important for us to recognize we’ve fallen into a strategic trap, we’ve actually strengthened Iran in the region which is why our allies like Jordan are so concerned. That is something that I’m going to put an end to. We’re going to stabilize Iraq but we’re going to hunt down those terrorist networks that are our biggest strategic threat. And Ambassador Crocker when he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee acknowledged as much.

3. October 9th, 2008

Senator Obama acknowledged that as the war in Iraq wound down, the United States also would have to “send a strong message to Pakistan that we can’t tolerate safe havens for bin Laden, where he’s training terrorists to kill Americans. We can’t tolerate it. Now we need to work with Pakistan to dismantle those training camps and kill bin Laden. But if Pakistan is unwilling or unable to take bin Laden out and we have him in our sights, we’ve got to do it.”

4. On August 20th 2009 – Live from the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House and broadcast on the radio, MSNBC, CNN and Fox News.

Smerconish: Mr. President, in each of our prior three conversations, I spoke with you extensively about the need for closure, and we agreed relative to bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri. And as a matter of fact, and this is well documented — I’ve written and spoken about it extensively — things that you said during the course of the campaign played a critical role in my personal decision-making pertaining to the 2008 election. So I feel I’d be derelict in my duty if I didn’t come here today and say, where are we? I know we had a major victory recently with the number-one individual for the Taliban in those tribal regions. But pertaining to bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, where is it?

Obama: Well, here’s where we’re at. We are continuing to ramp up the pressure in Afghanistan. And we had a — what appears to be a successful election in Afghanistan despite the Taliban’s effort to disrupt it. You’ve got General McChrystal now over there and more troops who are putting pressure on the eastern and southern portions of Afghanistan.

On the other hand, you’ve got the Pakistani army for the first time actually fighting in a very aggressive way, and that’s how we took out Baitullah Mehsud –

Smerconish: Right.

Obama: The top Taliban leader in Pakistan, who was also one of bin Laden’s key allies. So the goal here is essentially to have a pincher where we are squeezing them on both sides, we’re eliminating their allies, it’s making it more difficult for them to communicate, making it more difficult for them to operate safe havens, and over time what we hope to do is to flush them out. We are going to keep on putting pressure on them, and I know that it’s at great cost. I have to sign letters to family members who have fallen and a lot more are falling in Afghanistan than in Iraq. And as a consequence, we’ve got to make sure that we are really focused on finishing the job in Afghanistan, but it’s going to take some time.

5. October 27th 2010 live on MSNBC and immediately re-aired on radio.

Smerconish: As a candidate, sir, you once told me that Pakistan was playing the United States like a violin — is that still the case?

Obama: You know I think we’ve seen over the last 18 months improvement in how Pakistan deals with us. We have seen more cooperation on counter terrorism. They’ve finally started to send their armies up into some of these border regions where al Qaeda and these other extremist organizations are operating.

We have not gotten all the cooperation that we need. Now some of its capacity. Pakistan is not in real good shape right now. They just went though the worst floods they’ve seen in a generation. They are cash strapped. And so, some of that means they are not working as effectively with us as I’d like us to be working with them.

On the other hand if you look at — for example — the pace of pressure we’ve been able to apply to Al Qaeda over this past year with the cooperation of the Pakistani government. We’ve been able to take over a dozen top al Qaeda leaders, hundreds of their key affiliates, they are hunkered down in a way that we haven’t seen in a very long time.

And so we’ve made progress but we still have a long way to go. I just had a meeting last week with a Pakistani delegation including their top general indicating to them that we expect greater cooperation than we’ve been receiving so far.

Smerconish: Is it at a point, sir, where it’s time to send our Special Forces across that Afghan Pakistan border engaged in the hunt of bin Laden and al-Zawahiri?

Obama: Well, I can’t go into details about everything that we’re doing obviously because we’ve got a lot of brave men and women who are already out there and a lot of their work is classified. But I will say that we are ramping up the pressure each and every day and I’m actually confident that the work that General Petraeus is doing on the Afghan side of the border, the cooperation we’ve begun to get from the Pakistanis on their side of the border is starting to have an effect. But as you and I have talked about before — everyday I’ve got a team of some of our best people who are still looking for bin Laden still looking for Zawahiri still focused on making sure that we are defeating and dismantling Al Qaeda once and for all.

Smerconish: On your watch, do you believe that we’ve ever had a line on bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri?

Obama: I think it’s fair to say that by the time I got into office the trail had gone very cold. And we have done a lot of work over the last several years in making sure that we are starting to resuscitate the kinds of leads that would be necessary eventually to get them.

6. September 30th 2011 live on air and on MSNBC

Obama: Even before I was President, during the campaign, I said that if we got a bead on that guy we’re going to go after him wherever he was and that caused controversy at the time

Smerconish: I remember.

Obama: But as you well know: justice demanded it, the safety of the American people demanded it. And you know when I was up at the ceremony for the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 seeing all those families and then knowing that justice was done. I think it was a Great testament to wonderful work by our intelligence teams, and of course our Navy SEALS who carried out an incredible operation.

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Click Here To Watch Book Club with Michael Smerconish and John C. Bogle >

“I’ve been a four-time guest on Michael Smerconish’s Book Club, and, even after a great start, each session has been even better than the one before.

He has been well-prepared, has read each book with care and understanding, and asks provocative questions that have allowed me to expand the audience’s understanding of my work. Much more than parenthetically, Michael draws large and interested audiences, and handles them with grace and eloquence. He’s the best!”

John C. Bogle, author of ten books and founder of The Vanguard Group

“The Book Club was a fantastic experience for me as an author. Michael was well-prepared and insightful, and he posed interesting questions. The atmosphere was warm and engaging, and Michael steered the evening into something enlightening not only to the audience, but even to me as the subject.”

Mitch Albom
Author of “The Time Keeper”

“Michael Smerconish’s Book Club is every author’s dream. Literate, witty, and challenging; I love speaking with Michael about books. Or about anything. “

Nelson DeMille
Author of “The Panther”

“Michael Smerconish is the Cecil B. DeMille of book interviewers. He’s got the live audience, the film audience, that whole caboodle. Next time you write, make a date with Michael to reach the biggest possible audience.”

Chris Matthew
Author of “Jack Kennedy”

“Of the hundreds of book programs and clubs I have participated in over the years, I would be hard-pressed to think of any that were more insightful, effective, and classy than those hosted by Michael Smerconish. If it were only a remarkable forum in which to sell books — many books — it would be praise-worthy enough. But Michael Smerconish is one of those rare interviewers who has actually read the books, digested them, and thought upon them. He brings passion and clarity to author discussions. The atmosphere is conversational and relaxed, but thoroughly professional. There is only one downside to joining him and his hundreds of adoring and thoughtful fans — it spoils you. His audience is made up of true readers (hallelujah!) and authors are made to feel like royalty.”

Ted Gup
Author of “A Secret Gift.” (Penguin Press, 2010)

“Was very comfortable with Michael and knew he wouldn’t try and throw any gotcha questions at me. It was like being at home talking with my friend.”

Marcus Luttrell
Author of “Lone Survivor”

“Of all the book tour events I’ve attended over the last ten years, by far the best–by which I mean best questions, best presentation, best conversation,best time–was my visit to Michael Smerconish’s “Book Club.” I hope it was as good for the audience as it was for me. Please have me back!”

Jane Leavy
Author of “The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood”

2012 BookClubs

Nelson DeMille – The Panther
November 29, 2012 – 7pm
Scottish Rite Auditorium

On November 29, the inimitable Nelson Demille returns to Book Club to discuss the latest in his storied career of international intrigue-fiction, The Panther. The book marks the return of John Corey, the homicide detective-turned-FBI anti-terrorism agent, now posted in Yemen and tasked with tracking down one of the masterminds of the USS Cole bombing – codename, The Panther.

Book Club With Nelson DeMille Is Sold Out

John C. Bogle – The Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation
December 12, 2012 – 8am
Villanova School of Business, Villanova University

Join Michael and Legendary Founder of the Vanguard Group John C. Bogle for a Breakfast Book Club to discuss The Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation.

Mr. Bogle created Vanguard in 1974 and served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer until 1996 and Senior Chairman until 2000. The Vanguard Group is the largest mutual fund organization in the world.

TIME magazine has named Mr. Bogle one of the world’s 100 most powerful and influential people and FORTUNE has designated him as one of the investment industry’s four “Giants of the 20th Century.” Clash of Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation, is Mr. Bogle’s 10th book. Reflecting on a career that now spans more than 60-years, he brings his considerable wisdom and expertise to bear on the most troubling developments in the recent era – the crowding out of long-term investment by short-term speculation.

In language comprehendible by all, Mr. Bogle explains how, to the detriment of our society, the idea of stewardship has gotten lost in the shuffle, replaced by salesmanship and innovations that have ill-served investors. Mr. Bogle concludes the book by offering ten simple investment rules to help investors avoid the many hazards of investing, and by focusing on simplicity and economy, to meet their investment goals. The Clash of the Cultures Book Club meets Wednesday morning – December 12th at 8am ET at Villanova University. Tickets are just $25 for a Continental Breakfast and discussion sponsored by the Villanova School of Business withthanks to Dean Patrick Maggitti.

Book Club With Jack Bolge Is Sold Out

Marie Tillman – The Letter: My Journey Through Love, Loss, and Life
November 7, 2012 – 7pm
Media Theatre

On November 7, Michael will be joined at the Media Theatre by Marie Tillman, widow of American hero Pat Tillman and author of the new book The Letter: My Journey Through Love, Loss and Life. In it, Marie Tillman tells the harrowing story of her husband’s death in Afghanistan, the Army’s attempts to obfuscate the truth about it, about how a “just-in-case” letter Pat had written between deployments helped restore a sense of comfort in her life.

CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER – Stay tuned for news on possibly rescheduling!

Mitch Albom – The Time Keeper
October 14, 2012 – 7pm
National Museum of American Jewish History

The author of the iconic Tuesdays With Morrie will visit Book Club on October 14 to discuss his latest work of inspirational fiction, The Time Keeper. The book imagines the story of Dor, the inventor of the first clock, who is banished to solitary confinement for thousands of years after his attempts to measure and control the passage of time. Upon being released in the present day, “Father Time” is tasked with saving two individuals – a wealthy businessman consumed in his efforts to live forever and a teenage girl contemplating suicide – by teaching them to truly value each moment of their lives.

BOOK CLUB WITH MITCH ALBOM IS SOLD OUT!

Donald Barlett & James Steele – The Betrayal of the American Dream
September 27, 2012 – 7pm
Bucks County Playhouse

On Thursday, September 27 at 7pm, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele will join Michael at the Bucks County Playhouse to discuss “The Betrayal of the American Dream,” their manifesto on the decline of the country’s vaunted middle class. In “Betrayal,” Barlett and Steele undertake an exhaustive and insightful examination of modern U.S. economic policies and the politics that guide them, arriving at an unsettling conclusion: as a result of hardships caused by everything from the country’s tax code to its trade policy and approach to regulation (or lackthereof), the once vital middle class now faces an overwhelmingly bleak future.

BOOK CLUB WITH BARLETT AND STEELE IS SOLD OUT

Michael is an avid reader. There is always something on his nightstand or in his Kindle. Like his politics and his music, his reading tastes are tough to categorize. On his bookshelf, Bob Woodward sits next to Nelson DeMille.

A few years ago, before his program was nationally syndicated, he initiated Book Club with Michael Smerconish. The Book Club meets when the spiritmoves Michael, meaning, when he reads a book he would like to discuss with an author in front of a live audience.

These are immensely popular events drawing large crowds in and around Philadelphia.

In the last six years, he has hosted the following list of authors discussing the referenced books:

Best-selling author Nelson DeMille (four times!) – NightFall, Wild Fire, Gate House, The Lion U.S. Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell – Lone Survivor
Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Zaslow – The Last Lecture
Economist Steven Levitt – Freakonomics
Novelist Jennifer Weiner – Little Earthquakes
Former Naval Secretary John Lehman – The 9-11 Commission Report
Senator John McCain – Character is Destiny.
Vanguard Group Founder John “Jack” Bogle – The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, Little Book on Common Sense Investing
From the Sopranos, Joe Ganascoli – A Meal to Die For
Novelist Lisa Scottoline – Dirty Blonde, Daddy’s Girl
Lt Ilario Pantano – Warlord
MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan – State of Emergency
Former Governor Jim McGreevey – The Confession
Novelist Scott Turow – Limitations
Former National Security Adviser Richard Clarke – Breakpoint
Philadelphia Phillies Chairman Bill Giles – Pouring Six Beers at a Time
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly – Culture Warrior MSNBC’s
Chris Matthews – Life’s a Campaign and Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero
Columnist Richard Louv – Last Child in the Woods
Author and Columnist Ted Gup – A Secret Gift
Vanguard Group Founder John “Jack” Bogle – Don’t Count on It!
Journalist and Biographer James Kaplan, – Frank
Sports Reporter and Author Jane Leavy – The Last Boy
Columnist and Author Del Quentin Wilber – Rawhide Down
Novelist Pete Hamill – Tabloid City
Newsman Larry Kane – Death by Deadline
NHL Legend Bernie Parent – Journey through Risk and Fear
Radio Host Glen Macnow and Journalist George Anastasia – The Ultimate Book of Gangster Movies
Music Guru Jerry Blavat – You Only Rock Once
Libertarian Charles Murray – Coming Apart
Former MLB Pitcher Jim Abbott – Imperfect

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America’s Baby Bust

The nation’s falling fertility rate is the root cause of many of our problems. And it’s only getting worse.

For more than three decades, Chinese women have been subjected to their country’s brutal one-child policy. Those who try to have more children have been subjected to fines and forced abortions. Their houses have been razed and their husbands fired from their jobs. As a result, Chinese women have a fertility rate of 1.54. Here in America, white, college-educated women—a good proxy for the middle class—have a fertility rate of 1.6. America has its very own one-child policy. And we have chosen it for ourselves.

Forget the debt ceiling. Forget the fiscal cliff, the sequestration cliff and the entitlement cliff. Those are all just symptoms. What America really faces is a demographic cliff: The root cause of most of our problems is our declining fertility rate.

The fertility rate is the number of children an average woman bears over the course of her life. The replacement rate is 2.1. If the average woman has more children than that, population grows. Fewer, and it contracts. Today, America’s total fertility rate is 1.93, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; it hasn’t been above the replacement rate in a sustained way since the early 1970s.

The nation’s falling fertility rate underlies many of our most difficult problems. Once a country’s fertility rate falls consistently below replacement, its age profile begins to shift. You get more old people than young people. And eventually, as the bloated cohort of old people dies off, population begins to contract. This dual problem—a population that is disproportionately old and shrinking overall—has enormous economic, political and cultural consequences.

For two generations we’ve been lectured about the dangers of overpopulation. But the conventional wisdom on this issue is wrong, twice. First, global population growth is slowing to a halt and will begin to shrink within 60 years. Second, as the work of economists Esther Boserups and Julian Simon demonstrated, growing populations lead to increased innovation and conservation. Think about it: Since 1970, commodity prices have continued to fall and America’s environment has become much cleaner and more sustainable—even though our population has increased by more than 50%. Human ingenuity, it turns out, is the most precious resource.

Low-fertility societies don’t innovate because their incentives for consumption tilt overwhelmingly toward health care. They don’t invest aggressively because, with the average age skewing higher, capital shifts to preserving and extending life and then begins drawing down. They cannot sustain social-security programs because they don’t have enough workers to pay for the retirees. They cannot project power because they lack the money to pay for defense and the military-age manpower to serve in their armed forces.

There has been a great deal of political talk in recent years about whether America, once regarded as the shining city on a hill, is in decline. But decline isn’t about whether Democrats or Republicans hold power; it isn’t about political ideology at all. At its most basic, it’s about the sustainability of human capital. Whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney took the oath of office last month, we would still be declining in the most important sense—demographically. It is what drives everything else.

If our fertility rate were higher—say 2.5, or even 2.2—many of our problems would be a lot more manageable. But our fertility rate isn’t going up any time soon. In fact, it’s probably heading lower. Much lower.

America’s fertility rate began falling almost as soon as the nation was founded. In 1800, the average white American woman had seven children. (The first reliable data on black fertility begin in the 1850s.) Since then, our fertility rate has floated consistently downward, with only one major moment of increase—the baby boom. In 1940, America’s fertility rate was already skirting the replacement level, but after the war it jumped and remained elevated for a generation. Then, beginning in 1970, it began to sink like a stone.

There’s a constellation of reasons for this decline: Middle-class wages began a long period of stagnation. College became a universal experience for most Americans, which not only pushed people into marrying later but made having children more expensive. Women began attending college in equal (and then greater) numbers than men. More important, women began branching out into careers beyond teaching and nursing. And the combination of the birth-control pill and the rise of cohabitation broke the iron triangle linking sex, marriage and childbearing.

This is only a partial list, and many of these developments are clearly positive. But even a social development that represents a net good can carry a serious cost.

By 1973, the U.S. was below the replacement rate, as was nearly every other Western country. Since then, the phenomenon of fertility collapse has spread around the globe: 97% of the world’s population now lives in countries where the fertility rate is falling.

If you want to see what happens to a country once it hurls itself off the demographic cliff, look at Japan, with a fertility rate of 1.3. In the 1980s, everyone assumed the Japanese were on a path to owning the world. But the country’s robust economic facade concealed a crumbling demographic structure.

The Japanese fertility rate began dipping beneath the replacement rate in 1960 for a number of complicated reasons (including a postwar push by the West to lower Japan’s fertility rate, the soaring cost of having children and an overall decline in the marriage rate). By the 1980s, it was already clear that the country would eventually undergo a population contraction. In 1984, demographer Naohiro Ogawa warned that, “Owing to a decrease in the growth rate of the labor force…Japan’s economy is likely to slow down.” He predicted annual growth rates of 1% or even 0% in the first quarter of the 2000s.

From 1950 to 1973, Japan’s total-factor productivity—a good measure of economic dynamism—increased by an average of 5.4% per year. From 1990 to 2006, it increased by just 0.63% per year. Since 1991, Japan’s rate of GDP growth has exceeded 2.5% in only four years; its annual rate of growth has averaged 1.03%.

Because of its dismal fertility rate, Japan’s population peaked in 2008; it has already shrunk by a million since then. Last year, for the first time, the Japanese bought more adult diapers than diapers for babies, and more than half the country was categorized as “depopulated marginal land.” At the current fertility rate, by 2100 Japan’s population will be less than half what it is now.

Can we keep the U.S. from becoming Japan? We have some advantages that the Japanese lack, beginning with a welcoming attitude toward immigration and robust religious faith, both of which buoy fertility. But in the long run, the answer is, probably not.

Conservatives like to think that if we could just provide the right tax incentives for childbearing, then Americans might go back to having children the way they did 40 years ago. Liberals like to think that if we would just be more like France—offer state-run day care and other programs so women wouldn’t have to choose between working and motherhood—it would solve the problem. But the evidence suggests that neither path offers more than marginal gains. France, for example, hasn’t been able to stay at the replacement rate, even with all its day-care spending.

Which leaves us with outsourcing our fertility. We’ve received a massive influx of immigrants from south of the border since the late 1970s. Immigration has kept America from careening over the demographic cliff. Today, there are roughly 38 million people in the U.S. who were born elsewhere. (Two-thirds of them are here legally.) To put that in perspective, consider that just four million babies are born annually in the U.S.

If you strip these immigrants—and their relatively high fertility rates—from our population profile, America suddenly looks an awful lot like continental Europe, which has a fertility rate of 1.5., if not quite as demographically terminal as Japan.

Relying on immigration to prop up our fertility rate also presents several problems, the most important of which is that it’s unlikely to last. Historically, countries with fertility rates below replacement level start to face their own labor shortages, and they send fewer people abroad. In Latin America, the rates of fertility decline are even more extreme than in the U.S. Many countries in South America are already below replacement level, and they send very few immigrants our way. And every other country in Central and South America is on a steep dive toward the replacement line.

That is what’s happened in Mexico. In 1970, the Mexican fertility rate was 6.72. Today, it’s just at replacement, a drop of 72% in 40 years. Mexico used to send us several hundred thousand immigrants a year. For the last three years, there has been a net immigration of zero. Some of this decrease is probably related to the recent recession, but much of it is likely the result of a structural shift.

As for the Hispanic immigrants who are already here, we can’t count on their demographic help forever. They’ve been doing the heavy lifting for a long time: While the nation as a whole has a fertility rate of 1.93, the Hispanic-American fertility rate is 2.35. But recent data from the Pew Center suggest that the fertility rate for Hispanic immigrants is falling at an incredible rate. To take just one example, in the three years between 2007 and 2010, the birthrate for Mexican-born Americans dropped by an astonishing 23%.

In the face of this decline, the only thing that will preserve America’s place in the world is if all Americans—Democrats, Republicans, Hispanics, blacks, whites, Jews, Christians and atheists—decide to have more babies.

The problem is that, while making babies is fun, raising them isn’t. A raft of research shows that if you take two people who are identical in every way except for childbearing status, the parent will be on average about six percentage points less likely to be “very happy” than the nonparent. (That’s just for one child. Knock off two more points for each additional bundle of joy.)

But then, parenting has probably never been a barrel of laughs. There have been lots of changes in American life over the last 40 years that have nudged our fertility rate downward. High on the list is the idea that “happiness” is the lodestar of a life well-lived. If we’re going to reverse this decline, we’ll need to reintroduce into American culture the notion that human flourishing ranges wider and deeper than calculations of mere happiness.

We’ll need smart pronatalist policies, too. The government cannot persuade Americans to have children they do not want, but it can help them to have the children they do want. Here are three starting points:

Social Security. In the U.S., the Social Security system has taken on most of the burden for caring for elderly adults, a duty that traditionally fell to grown-up children. A perverse effect of putting government in the business of eldercare has been to reduce the incentives to have children in the first place. One RAND study suggested that Social Security depresses the American fertility rate by as much as 0.5.

Looking to dismantle this roadblock, some analysts have suggested flattening the tax code to just two brackets and significantly raising the child tax credit. Others suggest exempting parents from payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare while they are raising children—perhaps by a third for their first child, two-thirds for the second, and then completely for a third child. (Once the children turn 18, the parents would go back to paying their full share.)

Regardless of the particulars, the underlying theory is the same: To reduce the tax burden for people who take on the costs of creating new taxpayers (otherwise known as children).

College. Higher education dampens fertility in all sorts of ways. It delays marriage, incurs debt, increases the opportunity costs of childbearing and significantly increases the expense of raising a child. If you doubt that the economics of the university system are broken, consider this: Since 1960, the real cost of goods in nearly every other sector of American life has dropped. Meanwhile, the real cost of college has increased by more than 1,000%.

If college were another industry, everyone would be campaigning for reform. Instead, politicians are trying to push every kid in America into the current exorbitantly expensive system. How could we get college costs under control? For one, we could begin to eliminate college’s role as a credentialing machine by allowing employers to give their own tests to prospective workers. Alternately, we could encourage the university system to be more responsive to market forces by creating a no-frills, federal degree-granting body that awards certificates to students who pass exams in a given subject.

The Dirt Gap. A big factor in family formation is the cost of land: It determines not just housing expenses but also the costs of transportation, entertainment, baby sitting, school and pretty much everything else. And while intensely urban areas—Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Chicago—have the highest concentrations of jobs, they come with high land costs. Improving the highway system and boosting opportunities for telecommuting would go a long way in helping families to live in lower-cost areas.

These ideas are just a start; other measures certainly will be needed to avert a demographic disaster in the U.S. If we want to continue leading the world, we simply must figure out a way to have more babies.

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