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Bush defies Dems with 3 recess appointments
President Bush used Congresss Easter break today to defy Democratic lawmakers and appoint three officials who have already drawn heavy criticism on Capitol Hill. Todays recess-appointment gesture was another sign that he will not easily surrender to lame-duck status despite the Democrats control of Congress.It appears President Bush waited to act until it would actually be effective. When is the next Congressional break? The president used recess appointments to install Sam Fox, a major Republican donor from Missouri, to be ambassador to Belgium; We had an article about Mr. Fox yesterday. Senator John Kerry objects to his political donations. Andrew G. Biggs of New York to be deputy commissioner of Social Security, and Susan E. Dudley of Virginia to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the office of Management and Budget. Naming the three while Congress is in recess allows Mr. Bush to avoid the Senate confirmation process. The recess appointments allow the three to remain in their posts until the end of 2008, virtually the end of Mr. Bushs second term. Ms. Dudley was first nominated last August for the management-and-budget post, but she came under heavy criticism from environmental and consumer groups, which said she was hostile to government regulation. A trained economist, apparently her cost/benefit analyses of proposed legislation are a bit more detailed than most -- particularly on the cost side. Mr. Bush nominated her again in January, but her odds were not good in the new Democratic-controlled Senate. Ms. Dudley worked in the Environmental Protection Agency for two years during Ronald Reagans presidency. She has written extensively, and skeptically, about government regulation. In 2005, while she was at George Mason University, she wrote that government regulation was generally not warranted in the absence of a significant market failure. Mr. Biggs, who holds a bachelors degree from the Queens University of Belfast, a masters from Cambridge University and a doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science, ran afoul of Democrats because they disliked his ideas about privatizing Social Security. He has worked for the Cato Institute, which promotes libertarian views, and served as a staff member for the Presidents Commission to Strengthen Social Security. He was nominated last year but failed to win confirmation, and Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who heads the Senate Finance Committee, said in February that his panel would not take up his nomination anew. So much for the honourable Senator Baucus' control of the situation. Bummer. Posted by: trailing wife 2007-04-05 |
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