Who Is Andrew Biggs?

Andrew Biggs, President Bush's nominee to be Deputy Commissioner of Social Security, is pictured to the right with the microphone in his hand. He was on the stage with the President campaigning for Social Security privatization in Raleigh, NC, as reported by The Daily Dispatch of Henderson, NC.

Biggs was a Social Security employee. The Executive Intelligence Review gives a summary of Bigg's activities at Social Security:

The 37-year old Biggs, a graduate of the London School of Economics, was the Cato Institute's senior Social Security analyst. In 2001, Cato made Biggs the lead researcher for the President's official Commission [on Social Security reform]. In May 2003, Biggs was promoted to Associate Commissioner for Retirement Policy at the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA), part of Cato's coup-effort to take over the whole agency. Biggs sits just below the Deputy Commissioner who runs the Office of Policy, who "is responsible for major activities in the areas of strategic policy planning, policy research, and evaluation," as well as all statistical analysis, according to the SSA.

... Last year, Biggs wrote a "policy brief" internal document that mandates that all Social Security managers are required to present the idea "that Social Security faces dire financial problems requiring immediate action," in the words of the Jan. 15, 2004 New York Times. It would require the SSA to "insert solvency messages in all Social Security publications"; that is, to say that Social Security is in crisis. It would make Social Security managers spread Wall Street-lies in every public forum, as well as at non-traditional sites like farmers' markets and "big box retail stores." ...

Biggs' activities at Social Security have drawn complaints from Democratic members of Congress, according to GovExec.com. The American Federation of Government Employees also complained, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Prior to working for Social Security, Biggs was the assistant director of the Cato Institute's Project on Social Security Privatization. He wrote many, many articles for Cato promoting Social Security privatization. He wrote for the National Review, a conservative magazine, in February 2002 and again in April 2002 in support of Social Security privatization.

Curiously, Newsmax reports that Biggs argued at one time that homosexuals ought to support Social Security privatization because the current system unfairly denies them spousal benefits.

It would be hard to imagine a more inflammatory nomination that Bush could have sent to a Senate soon to be controlled by Democrats than that of Andrew Biggs. Biggs was nominated on the same day as John Bolton, whose nomination for Ambassador to the United Nations has also been extremely controversial. Biggs' nomination is the strongest possible sign that, despite the election results and despite widespread public opposition to privatization and despite the fact that privatization has little support among Republican Congressmen and virtually none among Democratic Congressman, President Bush intends to promote Social Security privatization over the next two years. It is a stunningly grandiose move.