Furthermore, I want blacks to be as in-your-face back to the Republican Party as Bush is to the nation and the world. Ownership and choice are far more critical for blacks than for rich white men.
I am thrilled that Bush is showing the imagination and leadership to put Social Security in play and open the door for personal accounts. But, back to the choreography and content trade-off, blacks need a minimum of the former and a maximum of the latter. I cannot think of one reason why any African-American earning $30,000 a year should be forced to continue putting one dime of hard-earned income into a retirement regime that does not involve ownership and market returns. Social Security provides neither and we want out, as soon as possible. We want returns on our hard-earned money, and we want to own and control what we work for.
No Child Left Behind and standards and testing sound great. But as long as our school system remains a government monopoly, where competition and alternatives cannot drive quality and excellence, there is only so much we can expect. And again, blacks have more at stake here than rich white folks who have the resources to buy alternatives. Even a miraculous revival of the black family in our nation's inner cities will not justify forcing the kids of these families to attend politically correct government schools.
Modest-income blacks need a market-driven health-care market. Health Savings Accounts and similar innovative ideas are crucial for poor people. Let's get employers out of the healt-care business for employees and open a real and dynamic market for personal health care that will force insurance companies to innovate and allow working men and woman of limited resources to buy health care that fits their needs and their pocketbooks.
I congratulate the president for bold and creative leadership and for emphasizing content over form. I want to encourage him to be even bolder.
It is not enough for government to allow African-Americans to put a toe into the pool of ownership and choice. We need government to get out of the way and let us dive in.