My Impromptus today begins with some memories of the late Constantine II, the last king of Greece. He was a guest of Bill Buckley at an editorial dinner one night. I go on to talk about the Republican Party, a heroic teacher, and sundry other things.
Yesterday, I had a piece about American politics and our entitlement programs. A friend of mine emails,
My wife’s mother was an old-time southern Democrat. She was convinced the election of Bush in 2000 meant that Herbert Hoover would rise from the grave and steal her Social Security check from the mailbox.
The demagoguery of the Democrats was extraordinarily successful. Demagoguery often is, and today we have it coming from all sides, certainly on the issue of entitlement reform.
I had a post yesterday about turmoil in France. As the New York Times reported,
More than a million protesters, chanting slogans like “retirement before arthritis,” took to the streets throughout France on Thursday to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the legal age of retirement to 64 from 62.
The heading of my post was “When I’m 64” — which is also the title of a Beatles song.
Later, I got to thinking: That song had been used at a Republican convention, to introduce a speaker who was going to talk about Social Security reform. I did some digging — and found a piece that we published in a September 2000 issue. This was after the parties’ conventions.
The piece was called “American Sounds.” In it, I discussed, among other things, introductory music at the conventions. It was Vito Fossella who gave the speech about Social Security reform. He walked out to “When I’m 64” in an instrumental version. I did not know the song at that point. If memory serves, it was NR’s John J. Miller who told me what it was — and why it was significant, in that context.
Fossella was a congressman from Staten Island, N.Y. Today, he is the president of that borough. Though my “American Sounds” is not on the Internet, his speech is.
The congressman began charmingly:
Let me share with you a story. Sixty-five years ago, my great-grandfather, Congressman James O’Leary, held the seat in Congress that I now hold. One of the great things about America is that someone named Vito Fossella could have a great-grandfather named O’Leary.
Fossella continued,
Another great thing about America has been our Social Security system, which I am proud to say my great-grandfather helped to create. He was a man of trust and America still values trust. He had the foresight and the courage to act for my parents’ and my generations. Now we need a leader who has the same foresight and courage to act for future generations.
Getting to the nitty-gritty, Fossella said,
Today, America faces the challenge of how to save Social Security. Unless we act, and act now, my young sons, Dylan and Griffin, will not see the promise of Social Security fulfilled. And I refuse to let that happen. We must save Social Security now — or future generations will face certain insecurity later.
Moreover,
saving Social Security is not a Republican thing or a Democrat thing. It is the right thing. We need someone now who will finally do the right thing.
Said Fossella,
The facts are powerful. In the early years of Social Security, there were 42 workers for every retiree. Now there are only three.
Not only that, the way that Americans plan for their retirement is also different.
Passbook savings accounts used to be the norm. Now we have many options. These options reflect the essence of America, the freedom of individuals to save and to invest so that their future is truly secure.
And so on and so forth. Fossella’s little talk is a snapshot in time. Yet it applies directly to 2023 — as it did to all the years in between, and as it will to 2024, and . . .