Wednesday, October 18, 2000

By DAVE HAMRICK
Editor-at-large

Believe it or not, there are subjects that interest me besides the presidential race and the debates.

But they can wait.

We go through this drill only once every four years, and what's at stake, after all, is pretty important. It's worth being the focus of our attention for a few months.

The debates are over now, but at this writing I haven't seen the final one. We went to press Tuesday afternoon, about six hours before the debate.

But I'm willing to stick my neck out and make some predictions before the fact that you will be reading after the fact.

I predict, for instance, that you didn't hear the word "freedom" or the word "liberty" very often if at all during the final debate. You didn't hear it much during the first two, so I think I'm pretty safe.

You probably heard words like "security" and "safety" and "our children" quite often. And you heard a lot of arguments about whose programs would do the most for whichever ethnic, economic or ideological group was being discussed at the moment.

It's almost as if we're living in a dream inspired by the likes of movie producer Stan Kubrick ("Clockwork Orange"), in which we're all slaves and we're given the right to choose which plantation will own us.

The Gore Plantation promises to keep us two percentage points above the poverty level when we're old, without any need for hard work or financial planning on our part, while the Bush Plantation will only keep us one and a half percentage points above poverty when we're old.

At least the Bush Plantation will give us the right to invest some of our retirement money ourselves, but the Gore Plantation is doing a good job of scaring us into the belief that doing our own investing just might be too risky.

Slaves ought not get too uppity. It only causes problems.

The Bush Plantation is also having a hard time explaining why it only wants to spend a little over $700 billion for new programs to make us safer, more secure and more comfortable in our slave quarters. The Gore Plantation is much more generous. It wants to give us $2.2 trillion in new goodies.

Here's how it works. You go out and work on the plantation and earn "better living" points. You can take your better living points to the plantation owner's basement, where all manner of things are stored, and buy food, or a warm blanket, or wood for the pot belly stove in the slave quarters, or a nice rocking chair to set on the front porch of the slave quarters.

Work harder and longer and you get more points. Only thing is, the master of the plantation takes points away from the slaves who work the hardest and longest and gives them to the ones who work less, or uses them to put fresh paint on the plantation house or a new fence for the north 40. The more points you earn, the more points you have to give up.

The master doesn't want you to get enough points to buy all that stuff for yourself. Instead, in the Gore and Bush plantations, the master will take care of your food, blankets and front porch sittin'. All you have to do is give most of your points to the master.

It really makes more sense to work less and let the master take care of your security, comfort and safety, doesn't it?

I'm painting Bush with the same strokes I'm using on Gore here. Obviously, I'm leaning toward the ultimate conclusion that Bush is the lesser of the evils.

Bush's promises to spend your money for you so you will be more secure and more comfortable are at least tempered by his promise to let you keep a little more of your money and make your own decisions about how to spend that little bit.

And he wants a Social Security structure in which you can control and invest a little bit of your retirement money yourself. Just a modest little "risky scheme."

Just once, when Gore starts that donkey manure about Bush wanting to "squander" the surplus by "giving it away to the wealthiest Americans," I would like to see Bush spit fire and launch into a passionate defense of freedom.

I would like to see him force Gore to explain just exactly what is wrong with people keeping their own money. Let me repeat the key phrase: THEIR OWN MONEY.

That's right. It's not the White House's money or Congress' money. It's not being given away. People who worked and invested, took risks and made smart decisions to earn their own income might be offered the chance to keep some of that income and spend it or invest it to keep the economy humming, and that possibility just gives Gore the hives.

Bush and Gore apparently both want bigger government and more spending. The only difference is that Gore wants it bigger quicker, and he believes our money belongs to him.

It would be nice if a candidate would come along who would truly free us slaves, but I wonder if such a candidate would have a chance.

Have we been on the plantation so long that we are afraid of freedom?

Maybe so.

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