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Great news. Today President Bush appoint Andrew Biggs to be deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration, using e power of recess appointment. The recess appointment was necessary because Democrat Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, had said that he wouldn?t even give the Biggs appointment consideration. Baucus's only reason for refusing to act was Biggs' policy views. In February Baucus said, "Mr. Biggs has championed Social Security privatization in the past, and he continues to think it?s a good idea today. It?s a bad idea to give the number-two position at the Social Security Administration to someone who still supports that failed proposal..."

In other words, Baucus didn't like the idea that Biggs held policy views that agree with those of President Bush.

When Bill Clinton was president, however, policy wasn't a litmus test. Clinton?s SSA Commissioner Ken Apfel should have not only not disqualified based on policy views held before assuming the SSA post -- but after assuming it, he was given a lead role in policy advocacy. He was easily confirmed by the full Senate on 9/19/97, and was widely regarded as a perfectly appropriate and capable SSA Commissioner.

Here are some soundbites of the Apfel. First, "...Apfel faces the daunting task of being the president's right-hand man on Social Security reform." Which, in fact, he was. He played a key role in the Clinton Administration?s 1998 year of discussion. Second,in Sept 2000, obviously a very politically sensitive time, he spoke out as to why then-candidate Bush?s personal accounts proposal was a bad idea:

The nation's top Social Security administrator has "serious reservations" about creating individual savings accounts using portions of payroll tax revenues, an idea favored by Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush. Social Security Commissioner Kenneth S. Apfel said "carving out" money from the 12.4 percent payroll tax and using it for savings accounts would make less money available to current recipients.

Third, here he is selling the Clinton plan:

Apfel's appearance was part of a nationwide educational campaign to drum up support for President Clinton's plan to use federal budget surpluses to pay down the national debt and devote the resulting interest savings to extending the trust fund's solvency until 2054.

And if Biggs is disqualified, then what about Peter Orszag, the liberal ideologue who has been installd by the Democrats at the helm of the Congessional Budget Office? CBO is as obligated to neutrality as SSA, strictly a scoring agency, and often involved in evaluating Social Security issues. Orzag is the proud author of a Social Security reform plan based almost enirely on tax increases. CBO itself did an evaluatio of the Orszag proposal, and found that it would retard economic growth. Now Peter heads the agency that issued that analysis. Why isn't that a conflict of interest?

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