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What about death and disability benefits? While Social Security pays an insulting one-time death benefit of $255 -- less than the cost of a pine box -- the private plan pays triple the worker's salary up to $150,000, with a guaranteed minimum of $50,000.

This saved Wendy Colehill's life. Her husband Bill, a sanitation worker in Galveston for 12 years, died in a car wreck, leaving behind Wendy and their three-year-old son. Under Social Security, she'd have been penniless and homeless, another victim of liberal "compassion." She cries as she tells of the $126,000 death benefit she received days after Bill's death, allowing her to keep their home, rear Bill Jr., and even go back to school to learn a trade.

Liberals decry personal accounts as "too risky," and pretend (after thirty years of saying the opposite) there is no crisis. But the truth is, it's crisis enough that so ridiculously few Americans have a deal this good. Democrats could have provided it long ago, for everyone. Instead, they robbed little old ladies' piggy banks, and then scared them with tales of Republican "vultures."

There's no question who the vultures were (and are) today. It's time to give Americans their money back, to create real lock-boxes beyond government's control. Were Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi private-sector pension managers, their management of Social Security would have landed them in prison long ago. As with Nottingham's Sheriff, we have too long trusted the criminals to guard our lives.

America needs a Robin Hood. IRAs, 401(k)s and these three courageous Texas counties have shown us the way. It is thus all the more appropriate that the Texan George Bush should lead the charge.

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Rod D. Martin is Founder and Chairman of Vanguard PAC. A former policy director to Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Special Counsel to PayPal.com Founder Peter Thiel, he is a member of the Board of Governors of the Council for National Policy, a Vice President of the National

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

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