The Insolvent Phantom Democracy

"All Together, Let’s Like Ike" declares the editorial in the bi-monthly AARP bulletin.
In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t like AARP. Perhaps it is because of their blatant efforts on behalf of their very nominal members, lobbying for increased benefits of all sorts without offering any real means of paying for them. After all, anyone older than 55 or so can belong for a few dollars a year. But like most of their millions of members, we have found affiliation useful when we travel, since members enjoy cheaper motel and hotel rates, etc., so we maintain membership. You could say we serve practicality rather than principle, I suppose!
So I greet the Bulletin in the mailbox with skepticism.
But: the current issue is an exception. Editor Jim Toedtman has an appreciation of the statesmanship and vision of President Dwight D. Eisenhower – and points out that our generation suffers badly by comparison.
Here’s a sample of Mr. Toedtman’s comments:
“… Eisenhower ...  found a way to persuade the public and Democrats in Congress that military excesses must be capped and that the nation’s civil rights, education and transportation needed urgent attention.”
So Ike began the civil rights march that would mature under LBJ; Ike built the interstate highway system, and found a fair and equitable way to finance its construction as it was built over the next 25 years or so (no massive debt). And he pushed the needs of education across the nation forward on the national agenda as well.
But there’s more, Toedtman tells us: “In his nationally televised farewell address, he shared his vision: "As we peer into society’s future, we … must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.’”
Wow! I didn’t remember Ike being that concise and well-spoken! In fact, I remember him splitting infinitives, throwing in parenthetical statements, and generally muddling about in his speeches. (I also remember one of his biographers putting forward the idea that Ike was much more intelligent than he ever let on, that his muddling way of speaking was in fact the camouflage of a very sly fox. Perhaps so …)
But we need to remember these words:
“We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the INSOLVENT PHANTOM of tomorrow.”
That thought should be engraved in bronze and placed in every prominent spot in the White House and the halls of Congress! Our current leadership is scandalous in this respect: They never face the issues squarely; they find borrowing politically expedient; they are miserable leaders with no vision! They will be chastised, even scourged, by the generation of Americans to come! Perhaps they will – like the English of old – dig up and scatter the bones of the current Congress!
For they ARE eating the nation’s seed corn!