The White House is reportedly putting together a menu of policies designed to reverse the decades-long decline in U.S. births.

This is hardly news, given all of the public comments administration officials have made about low fertility. It puts the U.S. on track with a growing swath of pronatalist governments around the world who are frustrated that their version of an ideal population eludes them, year after year. The new policies could end up providing some welcome financial support for families, but there’s a near certainty that they won’t result in the birth rates the administration desires.

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That’s because there’s a harsh truth none of these governments have yet grasped: Governments do not control whether or how many children people have. They always played at most a supporting role, even when fertility rates were high, and their ability to raise the rates in a low-fertility world is limited.

The stubborn belief that an ideal population is possible with just the right mix of policies is doing more than simply frustrating policymakers — it’s putting reproductive rights at risk, lowering fertility rates, and wasting time and money better spent adjusting to the new reality of an aging world.

Powerful people hyperfixating on births is nothing new. In post-World World II Asia, for example, leaders looking to rebuild their war-torn countries believed the key to a better future was a population ideal in size, age structure and ethnic composition. Worried about too many mouths to feed, they put all their efforts into policies that would turn down fertility rates — work they’re scrambling to undo today.

But countries that didn’t enact such policies also saw birth rates fall, meaning that, to a........

© The Hill