It's not a stupid question at all. Cal and the Bush Bunch would like to ignore the fact that millions of people lost their retirements in the stock market bust after Bush came into office.
If you check your facts you would see that the many mutual funds and retirement plans including fers, started diving before Clinton left office......
(mine included,) had I not reacted I also would have lost hundreds of thousands, but by watching the indicators I was able to freeze my accounts, transfer money out and actually profit,
With that said a money manager who is complacent should not invest agressively in the stockmarket,
The plan offered would have offered a tiered system similar to FERS, and given the person options and risk levels, from safe goverment securities to bonds, and then the stockmarket,
The plan offered also only allowed a "portion" of the invested money to be taken in the stockmarket with the remainder being left in SS as a safety net......
The plan that congress and the federal workers get is called FERS, and is the model for Bush's plan.
It offers a safety net, tiered risk options, and the ability to freeze the account at a moments notice.........good enough for generations of Democratic politicians yet not good enough for US............................