Outspoken Social Security critic gets key role in administering it
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How much damage can an ambassador to Belgium do? Probably not as
much as an ardent antagonist of Social Security might unleash in a top
policymaking position at the agency that millions of Americans depend
on.
The stick-in-your-eye recess appointments the Bush
administration made while the Senate was on its Easter break aren't a
surprise. The president's undisguised disdain for Congress isn't
exactly news. The headline-grabbing appointment was that of Sam Fox to
be ambassador to Belgium — timed to avoid a vote and allow Fox to serve
for the rest of President Bush's term.
Fox is a big Republican
donor whose money helped support the deceitful Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth's attacks on Democrat John Kerry's military record during the
2004 presidential campaign. After Kerry questioned Fox about this
during a February hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
the nomination was sinking and Bush withdrew it — only to put his man
into the Brussels job after the Senate left town. It's a captivating
show of high-stakes political retribution, so naturally the imbroglio
got a breathless round of cable TV coverage.
But the Fox
appointment doesn't have nearly the insidious potential to harm average
Americans as the recess appointment of Andrew Biggs to be deputy
commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Biggs is more than
just a proponent of Bush's failed proposal to change Social Security
from a system of guaranteed government insurance to an investment
vehicle dependent on individual savings. He is an architect of the
libertarian project to undermine public confidence in Social Security
to clear the way for dismantling it.
As Biggs sees it, Social
Security is part of the broader "New Deal paradigm" of government
supports for individuals that must be "overthrown." He has drawn a
parallel to Margaret Thatcher's privatization of British industries,
writing that Thatcher gave the British public an "incentive" to
conclude for itself that state-run companies should be in private hands.
Likewise,
Biggs wrote in a 1999 article, flagging public confidence in Social
Security's financial outlook might help send this "liberal sacred cow
to the slaughterhouse."
Biggs' antipathy toward Social Security
is so deep that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus — an
economic moderate — refused to take up the nomination. Then Bush
promoted him anyway (Biggs already was at the agency in a lesser job).
Baucus said the public took Social Security privatization "off the
table" by rejecting it unequivocally when Bush pushed it.
It's
awfully hard to imagine that a Congress now controlled by Democrats —
who resurrected their political fortunes in part by blocking Social
Security privatization — would go along with a new private accounts
scheme. But that doesn't make Biggs harmless. "You're putting a guy in
as policy director who does not believe in social insurance," says
Barbara Kennelly, president of the National Committee to Preserve
Social Security and Medicare and a former counsel to the Social
Security commissioner during the Clinton administration. "He can
undermine the program from within."
Biggs told me in an e-mail
that he would separate his personal views from his job. He also said
the agency's role is to provide lawmakers and the public with
information to help them "in reaching consensus" on Social Security.
Never
mind that a consensus already has been reached: Americans don't want to
trade guaranteed benefits for unpredictable investments. Remember,
control over information — dare we call it propaganda? — is what
conservatives see as crucial to convincing people to scrap the program.
In
2005, Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform reported on how Social Security's official statements changed
during the Bush era. While estimates of Social Security's long-term
solvency improved over four years, the agency's rhetoric about its own
fiscal health became increasingly dire.
"Public assurances that
the Social Security system faces "no immediate crisis' have been
eliminated from agency presentations, and descriptions of the role
Social Security plays in keeping seniors "out of poverty' have been
dropped," the study showed. "In their place, the agency now repeatedly
warns that Social Security is "unsustainable' and "underfinanced' and
"must change.' "
Last year, Social Security trustees reported
that the system's finances are largely unchanged — Social Security has
sufficient funds to pay full benefits for the next 34 years.
Nonetheless, the report warned that surpluses would "soon begin to
decline" and said that Social Security and Medicare aren't
"sustainable."
At this point, there's nothing to be done about
Biggs — except to show that public opposition to privatizing Social
Security is insurmountable.
Marie Cocco's nationally syndicated column appears regularly.
Which agency was he referring to? No agency was indicated in the article.
Posted by: vociferous on Sun Apr 15, 2007 2:37 pm