As a fiscal conservative, I follow what I call the "P.J. O' Rourke" test for deciding whether I think public spending is justified or not: Is it worth shooting your mom over? O'Rourke's impeccable logic is this: Your mom has to pay taxes. If she doesn't pay her taxes, she goes to jail. If she tries to escape from jail, then the guards shoot her. So would you shoot your mom or not over defense spending? Well, P.J. would, saying, "Look, Mom, we all have to provide for the common defense to protect ourselves, so pay up." P.J's example of something he wouldn't shoot his mom for is subsidized day care, saying that paying for someone else's babysitter is just not worth it.

I actually disagree with P.J. on the day care example, based on the following postulates.

1) If we use the analogy that a society is like an organism, then its goal is to reproduce itself and assure its survival into the future; and

2) The way to modify social behavior is providing economic incentive to do so; and

3) In special cases, government intervention is necessary in order to preserve society and allow it to self-perpetuate (what an ugly word, but it fits). The classic example is that everyone had to suffer in order to fight World War II, getting drafted and maybe shot, and paying higher taxes, and working extra hours, submitting to reduced civil liberties, and the like.

Well, I'd say that the Spanish natality crisis and the flood of immigration to Spain counts as a special case. Put basically, if your society doesn't reproduce itself, if births don't increase more than deaths, then it is going to get old and die, and that's been happening in Spain. Net population increase in Spain last year was 700,000, 600,000 immigrants and 100,000 born in Spain. That means that population would be close to decline if not for immigration. Immigrants make up more than 8% of the inhabitants of Spain.

I'm very much in favor of immigration; I'm an immigrant. I believe that immigration enriches a country. I also believe that immigrants must conform to the basic rules of their new society, what they call here "integration." My impression is that is what most immigrants to Spain do. I see Pakistanis, Moroccans, Bulgarians, Syrians, Gambians, Dominicans, Chinese, and Ecuadorians every day here, working hard and raising their families while obeying the law and minding their own business. You couldn't ask for a better group of people to help perpetuate your society; remember that people vote with their feet, and these immigrants have all voted for Spain. They're committed to living here, and they will work to make it a better place. We've known for years in the United States that there's no better American than a person who has freely chosen to be.

Spain, however, is not nearly as sanguine as I am. There is a great deal of public concern here that there are too many immigrants and that they are going to change society in ways that Spaniards won't like.

Hey, guys, I've got news. If y'all don't reproduce yourselves, immigrants will make up a larger and larger percentage of your society. You know this. Why don't you go reproduce?

Because people in Spain live very well if they have few responsibilies. There is no other place, not even in the rest of Latin Europe, where the people enjoy life so much, and having children certainly cuts back on the fun, the. Big time. Many people don't reproduce, and many of those who do wait until their late 30s or 40s and then have only one.

So it's obvious that Spaniards need an economic incentive to make more Spaniards. Well, two methods of doing this are a) paying for day-care so that parents don't have to worry about kids while they work and b) extending maternity and paternity leave so that parents can spend more time with their kids. I would go farther, and give parents a hefty income-tax cut, and I mean hefty, for each child they have. Non-parents, under this scheme, would pay at least twice as much as parents.

That ought to get people to reconsider whether to reproduce or not. If it doesn't, change the tax rates so non-parents pay three times as much, or four times or whatever is necessary to get them to have at least two kids per couple.

Well, Spaniards? Is it worth it? Or would you rather have the proportion of immigrants continue to increase?