President Bush on April 4 sidestepped Democratic opponents in Congress and used a recess appointment to make Andrew Biggs, a leading proponent of Social Security privatization, the deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

Bush nominated Biggs for the post in each of the past two years, but the Senate never formally considered the nomination. In February, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said his panel would not hold a hearing on Biggs' nomination because "the American people took privatization off the table in the last Social Security debate" in 2005.

Bush, though, took advantage of his ability to appoint people without obtaining the advice and consent of the Senate when Congress is in recess, as it was this week. Biggs' appointment will last until this session of Congress ends in December 2008.

Biggs served as a staff member on the 2001 President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security, which recommended methods by which individuals could divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into private investment accounts. He has also worked on Social Security issues at the Cato Institute, which has pushed for Social Security privatization for many years.

"Andrew Biggs has a long history as an ideological promoter of Social Security privatization, an idea the American people resoundingly rejected, and he was deemed unfit for this post," Baucus said after the appointment. "I'm troubled not only by the constitutional end run around the Senate here, but by the White House's willful disregard of the American people's concerns."