[ Joe Biden has nominated right-wing think tank fellow Andrew
Biggs to the Social Security Advisory Board. Biggs has spent his
career advocating privatization and cuts to the program that provides
retirement benefits for 66 million Americans.]
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JOE BIDEN HAS PICKED A LONGTIME SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZER TO OVERSEE
SOCIAL SECURITY  
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Matthew Cunningham-Cook
June 22, 2022
Jacobin
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_ Joe Biden has nominated right-wing think tank fellow Andrew Biggs
to the Social Security Advisory Board. Biggs has spent his career
advocating privatization and cuts to the program that provides
retirement benefits for 66 million Americans. _

President Joe Biden speaks during a virtual Major Economies Forum on
Energy and Climate at the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower
Executive Office Building on June 17, 2022, in Washington, DC. , (Alex
Wong / Getty Images)

 

Last month, President Joe Biden nominated
[[link removed]] a
longtime advocate of Social Security privatization and benefit cuts to
a key board overseeing the Social Security system. The move comes as
Republicans get ready to push
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to Social Security and Medicare, if they end up winning control of
Congress during the November’s midterms, as expected.

The development suggests that there could soon be a coordinated push
in Washington to cut the Social Security program, which provides
retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to 66 million Americans.

On May 13
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Biden chose to nominate Andrew Biggs, a fellow at the right-wing
American Enterprise Institute think tank, for a Republican seat on the
bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board, which was created
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1994 to consult the president and Congress about the Social Security
system.

For years, Biggs has been a vocal critic of expanded Social Security
and workers’ right to a secure, stable retirement free from the
vagaries of the stock market. He has dismissed the retirement crisis
as a nonissue
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as recently as 2020 blamed
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with the Social Security system on “older Americans’ game of
chicken.” And two decades ago, Biggs worked on a George W. Bush
administration commission that pushed to privatize Social Security.

In response to questions from us, Biggs suggested he no longer favors
privatizing Social Security. Instead, he said he now believes that
nations’ Social Security–like programs should be “more focused
on guaranteeing against poverty in old age while middle and
high-income individuals take on greater responsibility for saving for
retirement on their own, such as by the government establishing
universal retirement savings accounts for every worker.”

 

Establishing such savings accounts would be a solution in search of a
problem. Social Security is incredibly successful
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delivering retirement benefits, and raising taxes on the wealthy would
be a straightforward way to expand the program. Alternatively,
creating retirement accounts invested in the stock market would
involve a much more unwieldy and risky expansion of government
programs — and would be a huge boon to Wall Street.

While the seat on the bipartisan board is by tradition assigned to a
Republican, Biden could have chosen a moderate candidate — or even
leaned on precedent to avoid the nomination process altogether. Former
president Donald Trump routinely refused
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nominate Democrats for seats on boards and commissions. Furthermore,
Biden could use the efforts of Senate Republicans
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block speedy confirmation of many of his nominees as justification for
holding the seat open, said Jeff Hauser, director at the Revolving
Door Project.

“If [Senate minority leader Mitch] McConnell’s caucus continues to
slow-march consensus presidential nominees in order to limit the
filling of vacant judgeships, independent agency commissioner slots,
US attorney positions, and senior department officials,” said
Hauser, “retaliation against an ardent opponent of Social Security
would be both well warranted and good politics.”

“Carpal Tunnel Syndrome From Your Mouse or Something”

For Biggs, attempting to milk government programs for private sector
profits is nothing new.

In 2001, Biggs was a staff analyst on George W. Bush’s commission on
Social Security that advocated privatizing the government program
by shifting
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programs’ trust fund investments from US Treasury bills to high-fee,
high-risk “personal accounts” that seniors could use to invest
Social Security assets in the stock and bond markets, like employees
do with their 401(k) plans.

After that, Biggs spent four years working as an associate
commissioner of the Social Security Administration, which administers
the Social Security program, while Bush unsuccessfully
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the unprecedented privatization efforts recommended by the 2001
commission.

A sample of Biggs’s writings on Social Security over the years shows
that he:

* Hand-waved away retirement insecurity for millions of Americans,
saying that “only
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23 percent of seniors will have retirement incomes equal to or less
than 75 percent of their average preretirement earnings.
* Was concerned
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Social Security taxes being raised on “upper-middle class Americans
making as little as $140,000,” even though such a tax hike would
massively increase long-term Social Security funding.
* Endorsed cuts to Social Security, saying
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“Most middle and upper-income retirees could survive just fine with
slightly lower initial Social Security benefits and lower Cost of
Living Adjustments after retirement.”
* Argued that Social Security privatization would make
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“not only richer, but also happier, healthier, more familial,
smarter, and more active citizens.”
* In 2013, Biggs justified the idea of raising the retirement age
for Social Security benefits by saying
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job risk is, you know, carpal tunnel syndrome from your mouse or
something like that.”

For years, Biggs has led the American Enterprise Institute’s attacks
on defined-benefit pensions in the public sector, pushing
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and municipalities to lower the expected rate of return on their
pension funds, which would make the funds look less promising
and bolster
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case for benefit cuts.

In 2016 [[link removed]], President
Barack Obama and Republican lawmakers appointed Biggs to the Financial
Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, the unelected body
that effectively controls financial matters on the island, which has
pushed for deep cuts in public employees’ pensions, while bailing
out the island’s Wall Street bondholders.

Biggs’s background and past statements make him a questionable
choice to fill the Social Security Advisory Board vacancy — if Biden
had to fill the vacancy at all.

As Hauser at the Revolving Door Project pointed out, Trump would
routinely refuse to nominate Democrats for the seats they were owed on
other bipartisan boards and commissions, including
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Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Securities and Exchange
Commission.

Progressives called on Democratic lawmakers to speak up and demand
that Trump make the appointments — but the calls were ignored.

“Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump quietly pocket vetoed potential
appointees recommended by Chuck Schumer during the Trump presidency,
and sadly, the Democratic leadership ignored our call for action and
never raised a fuss about it publicly,” Hauser told us.

“However, that passivity doesn’t change the fact that a precedent
was set,” he added — suggesting Biden should use that precedent to
avoid nominating extremists like Biggs.

_Matthew Cunningham-Cook has written for Labor Notes, the Public
Employee Press, Al Jazeera America, and the Nation._

* Social Security
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* privitazation
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* Joe Biden
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* federal oversight
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