FARGO— Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Tim Mathern said Tuesday that the nation's ongoing financial crisis is the clearest evidence yet that too much privatization has led to regular people getting hurt.

"We need to make sure that people's hard-earned money is not subject to privatization schemes that are blowing up all around us," Mathern said. "We are a strong state and we will recover from the current meltdown, but we have to make sure that something like this never happens again."

He gave the example of Gov. John Hoeven's support of a proposal to allow state workers to move their state government pensions into a defined contribution plan. Participants of such a plan are not guaranteed any retirement income from the plan. They can only retire if the investments they choose pan out.

As governor, Mathern will make sure that state pension funds and other state investments aren't sacrificed to such privatization schemes. For now, the governor owes North Dakotans a full accounting of any losses to state investments that their tax dollars.

"We can't risk letting our state investments go the way of our financial markets," Mathern said.