The trouble with Americans is there aren’t enough of them

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a population bomb of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - America [needs to get bigger](. - A [cursing cheerleader exemplifies our politics](. - What if we just [raised the SALT cap](? - Being illegal is [bad for your stock price](. Turns Out We Could Use That Population Bomb For the past few decades, the scary story economists have used to keep each other awake at economist campouts is the story of Japan. Its stagnant population and deflation are scarier in these tellings than finding [a hook]( on your car-door handle after you rush home from Makeout Point.  But America just keeps getting more Japan-like. The Fed has been trying to make inflation happen for years with no luck. And America’s population growth has stagnated to levels not seen since the Depression, when people were too busy building Hoovervilles to make babies. Is this really as scary as it sounds? Matthew Yglesias suggests it is. He writes [the U.S. must triple in size if we’re to support the lifestyle]( to which we’ve all grown accustomed. Otherwise we’ll spend all our dollars supporting a ballooning cohort of retirees. Matt’s prescription is reforming immigration and making it easier for people to have babies. President Joe Biden’s American Families Plan, [unveiled]( today, is a $1.8 trillion bet on the baby-having part. Some of it may even have bipartisan support. Who doesn’t love babies? The immigration part is much knottier (see: American politics). And Tyler Cowen argues paying for the American Families Plan by jacking up the [capital gains tax rate will signal the U.S. doesn’t like wealth](, discouraging immigrants. We could also encourage family-forming (not to be confused by [babby-forming]() by making housing more affordable in cities where most of the jobs are. Ramesh Ponnuru suggests the main hurdle to this is the liberal voters who live in and run these cities [catching a severe case of the NIMBYs]( whenever you talk about building more housing near them. And it won’t make a big dent in our population, but it’s just morally right to [let the thousands of Afghan interpreters and other helpers into the U.S.](bbg://news/stories/QS9W06DWLU7S) when our troops leave Afghanistan, writes Bloomberg’s editorial board. Our visa and refugee process is too onerous for these people, who face mortal danger from the Taliban while they wait. That is truly scary. Paid Post The power of PayPal online, now in person. Give your small business an easy way to accept touch-free, in-person payments. Create a unique QR code with the PayPal app and display it on your device or as a printout in store. [Download the app.]( Customer must have PayPal account and app to pay. PayPal The Case of the Cursing Cheerleader As we all know, the Supreme Court has a long tradition of adjudicating social-media controversies, going back to Felix Frankfurter’s doctrine of “Bro! You just posted [cringe](!” established in Instagram vs. Your Dad. Next on its docket is the case of a high-school cheerleader who expressed her lack of commitment to [Sparkle Motion]( in an expletive-laden rant on Snapchat. This brought down on her the wrath of her school, which she sued, arguing her free-speech rights had been violated. The case highlights how [the old left-right battle lines over speech have shifted lately](, Noah Feldman writes. The ACLU is siding with conservatives to protect a cheerleader’s right to encourage her school to “Gimme an F! Gimme a U!” et cetera, as the Founding Fathers intended. But the Biden administration sides with the school, fearing a loss here would make it harder to stop bullying and hate speech. Whatever the outcome, it should get plenty of airtime on Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, which keep fans hooked on an endless supply of sweet, sweet outrage. James Carville recently warned there’s political power in this perpetual controversy machine, urging Democrats to stop feeding it with wokeness. Jonathan Bernstein points out the [Dems haven’t exactly suffered politically in the Peak Woke era](. It’s almost as if normal voters aren’t on the same wavelength with those suffering from Fox poisoning. SALT Talks: New Jersey Edition Biden’s infrastructure plan, meanwhile, is threatened not just by Republicans but also by Democrats from high-tax states. They insist he do away with the 2017 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions or they’ll take their lacrosse ball and go home. This cap has mainly hurt [millionaires](, but Alexis Leondis points out it has also hurt some legitimately middle-class people, when you adjust for how pricey these areas are. Her solution is to [not remove the cap but boost it to $30,000 for married filers](. This would solve a bunch of problems, including easing the burden on middle-class taxpayers, and maybe even encourage more babby-forming in these areas. Further Infrastructure Plan Reading: Biden should [remember the Foxconn debacle’s lesson]( about public-private partnerships. — Tim O’Brien Telltale Charts Pot continuing to remain illegal in the U.S. is [a big problem for American pot stocks](, writes Tara Lachapelle. That may be about to change. [Agricultural commodity prices are soaring](, but that probably won’t last, writes David Fickling. Further Reading One upside of the semiconductor shortage is it’s [forcing automakers to ditch models nobody really wants](. — Anjani Trivedi Sony’s numbers suggest [the PS5 isn’t generating follow-on sales]( the way it should. — Tim Culpan [Deutsche Bank is making money again, but still in the same old way](. It may not be safe or sustainable. — Elisa Martinuzzi Mario [Draghi needs the ECB’s help keeping borrowing costs low]( as he spends billions in stimulus. — Marcus Ashworth Both [the U.K. and EU get the AstraZeneca vaccine wrong](; the U.K. is too reckless, while the EU is too cautious. — Sam Fazeli Beijing is [pushing tycoons out of power in Hong Kong](. They haven’t done any good lately anyway. — Matthew Brooker It’s good, actually, that [Elon Musk makes money for Tesla]( by manipulating the price of Bitcoin. — Matt Levine ICYMI WFH is [saving Google $1 billion a year](. Walmart is [fighting a $15 minimum wage](. Drones are [delivering Girl Scout cookies](. Kickers New [Star Wars watches dropped](. (h/t Ellen Kominers) “[Creativity genes” helped humans]( conquer the world. The “[Ed Balls” tweet turns 10](. RIP, [Michael Collins](. Notes: Please send Star Wars watches and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. 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