Biba Bush!

Although the US presidential race may seem remote and irrelevant to the average CNMI citizen, in reality, a great deal is at stake–and not just with the Federal takeover question either. Take Social Security, for example. Social Security certainly affects most private sector workers in the CNMI, myself included.

Al Gore and George W. Bush have vastly different ideas on Social Security reform. Mr. Bush wants partial privatization. He wants to empower workers with direct ownership of their Social Security retirement assets, which would yield far greater investment returns in the productive private business sector, where they would be invested under the Bush plan (as opposed to government treasury bonds).

Al Gore–until very recently–dismissed this as a “risky scheme.” Gore does not have much faith in the private market. For him only Big Government can be trusted. All he wants to do is expand government influence in the retirement realm.

Now I don’t know about any of you, but I personally prefer to own my retirement assets outright. I don’t believe in pension funds. I prefer personal accounts in my name, such as Roth Individual Retirement Accounts and 401 (k) plans, which can be rolled over into IRAs when switching employers.

Let’s be clear about pension plans. With pension plans, one does not actually directly own or manage one’s assets. You pay into the system, become vested, and then collect a monthly check upon retirement. (Social Security is essentially a forced federal government pension plan.)

Personally, I think pension plans are for the fearful, lazy and un-ambitious. They are for risk-averse people who desperately long for security–who are afraid to manage their own assets. They are clearly not for every citizen.

With personal retirement accounts, however, you own your money directly. It is a merit-based system. Discipline, prudence and good judgment are involved. Here, you save and invest on your own. If you save, invest and accumulate $2 million in assets, all of it is yours to keep, to spend and manage however you see fit. You decide how much you will draw from your retirement nest egg each month, not the government, not some pension plan.

Democrats like Al Gore will of course claim that this is risky. They don’t trust the individual to make his own investment decisions and plan for his own retirement needs.

Al Gore wants to legislate reality. He wants to magically eliminate market risks through “guaranteed” government programs. Even though all of life is risk, Gore wants to abolish risk by an act of Congress and the President, defying reality for at least a certain period of time, before the whole system (as in Social Security in 2020) finally comes crumbling down. There is something awfully sinister about a liberal–divorced from economic reality–who fails to realize that there are no guarantees in life.

Moreover, we should be awfully suspicious of politicians who believe that the private sector is “risky” and that only Big Government is completely safe. After all, were does Big Government get “its” money, if not from the risky private sector?