Senate Urged to Block Biden’s Pro-Privatization Nominee for Social Security Board

Defenders of Social Security on Tuesday urged the U.S. Senate to block President Joe Biden’s little-noticed nomination of Andrew Biggs—an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow with a history of supporting Social Security privatization—to serve on the independent and bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board.

Social Security Works, a progressive advocacy group, is leading the charge against Biggs, highlighting his role in the George W. Bush administration’s failed attempt to privatize the New Deal program in 2005. At the time, Biggs worked on Social Security as an associate director of Bush’s National Economic Council.

“Andrew Biggs has advocated for Social Security cuts throughout his career. And now, he’s been nominated to oversee Social Security,” Social Security Works tweeted on Tuesday.

The group, whose president currently serves on the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB), is also sharing a sample call script for those who wish to contact their representatives about Biggs.

“The Senate can, and must, block this terrible nomination,” the organization wrote. “Please call your senators at 202-224-3121 and tell them to vote NO on Andrew Biggs.”

The White House announced Biggs’ nomination to the SSAB in May, a move that drew little notice at the time.

Last month, The Lever‘s Matthew Cunningham-Cook called attention to the president’s pick and warned it suggests “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.”

While Biden vowed on the campaign trail to back an expansion of Social Security, he has previously supported cutting the program’s benefits. Biden was vice president when former President Barack Obama proposed a “grand bargain” with the GOP that would have entailed cuts to Social Security.

Biggs, too, has a long record of advocating Social Security cuts.

“He has dismissed the retirement crisis as a non-issue and as recently as 2020 blamed problems with the Social Security system on ‘older Americans’ game of chicken,'” Cunningham added. “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 to nominate Democrats for seats on boards and commissions.”

Simmering outrage over Biggs’ nomination to serve on the SSAB, which was formed in 1994 to advise the president and Congress on Social Security, comes as progressives are demanding an expansion of the program’s modest benefits—while Republican lawmakers, per usual, eye cuts.

Last month, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led the introduction of the Social Security Expansion Act, which would lift the cap on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax and boost the program’s annual benefits by $2,400.

Originally published at Commondreams.org, written by Jake Johnson.