Jason Furman: preference

Transcript context

…No checkpoint. You enforce through the IRS. You’re sent to Idaho. If you leave Idaho in less than four years, you pay another 20 percent of your income in tax to the federal government. There’s no strong enforcement. But also, a lot of people — if they show up in Idaho, they will stay, I think, out of good faith. Maybe half of them won’t. But if half of them do, that seems like a big achievement. You’re for more immigration anyway, right? So you don’t mind if they trickle down into Nebraska. I would say, if the only way for me to get more immigrants is they have to be in one part of the country, I would probably settle for that and compromise with you on this plan. Maybe that’s not where they can make the biggest contribution to the American economy, to the American fisc, to their own families. I’d rather let people choose that than make the choices about where they want to live, including immigrants make those choices. As you know, Bryan Caplan has a book out about open borders. Coming from the left, Matt Yglesias has a forthcoming book arguing we should target an America of one billion people. Do you think right now we’re just thinking too small about numbers in this country? Three hundred twenty million — it’s not very much. China and India — they’re geopolitical rivals. Shouldn’t we have a plan to get to an America of, say, 700 million people? And they can’t all go to Manhattan, not even Staten Island.…

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