National Committee Reacts to Recess Appointment of Andrew Biggs to Social Security Administration

Recess Abuse
President Bush makes an end run around the Senate.

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For instance, the recess appointment of Andrew Biggs as deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration eliminates any possibility of bipartisan cooperation on Social Security. The administration has a legitimate complaint that Mr. Biggs, an advocate of private accounts, wasn't given a hearing or vote in the Senate. But the recess appointment enraged -- as the administration knew it would -- Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), whose cooperation on Social Security changes would be critical.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501886.html

National Committee Reacts to Recess Appointment of Andrew Biggs to Social Security Administration

WASHINGTON, April 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "Clearly,
President Bush knows no bounds when it comes to his obstinate pursuit of Social Security private accounts. The announcement of the recess appointment of privatization crusader Andrew Biggs as Deputy Commissioner of Social Security demonstrates that this President will flex any muscle and employ any strategy to put forward his ill-conceived plan to privatize Social Security," said Barbara B. Kennelly, President and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

Since November 2006, when the President first proposed Andrew Biggs for SSA Deputy Commissioner, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare has denounced the appointment. NCPSSM President and CEO Barbara B. Kennelly, a former Congresswoman and Counselor to the Commissioner of SSA, stated, "Andrew Biggs has built a career on creating strategies which would destroy Social Security and promoting the President's private accounts plans to achieve that goal. We believe Mr. Biggs is a partisan and political nominee presented at a time when we need just the opposite." Biggs, an assistant director at the conservative CATO Institute, has authored numerous papers and articles proposing private accounts as a way to shift seniors away from government retirement programs in favor of private markets. His contempt for Social Security was on record as early as 1999 when he wrote that Social Security should be "sent to the slaughterhouse."

"48 million Americans depend on Social Security each year. It is the nation's most successful and trusted government program. But with this recess appointment, the future of Social Security as we know it is truly at risk. The fox is in the henhouse and regrettably, our own President opened the door," said Mrs. Kennelly.

The National Committee, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, acts in the interests of its membership through advocacy, education, services, grassroots efforts and the leadership of the Board of Directors and professional staff. The work of the National Committee is directed toward developing better- informed citizens and voters.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20070405/pl_usnw/national_committee_reacts_to_recess_appointment_of_andrew_biggs_to_social_security_administration