Obama Appoints Republican to Social Security Advisory Board: Betrayal or Following the Law?

[Zynx]

I've seen a lot of people get upset about this one:

http://swampland.time.com/2013/09/30/obama-picks-romney-aide-who-knocked-his-social-security-plan-for-social-security-board/

"President Barack Obama announced Monday that he is nominating Lanhee Chen, Mitt Romney’s former top policy adviser, to the Social Security Advisory Board.

The independent and bipartisan board advises the president, Congress and the Commissioner of Social Security on the program, but does not have any decision-making authority. Chen, who served as the Romney campaign’s policy director and is a research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University, was deeply critical of the president’s management of federal entitlement programs during the campaign.

“On retirement programs, the President’s plan is laughable,” Chen wrote in a memo to reporters two weeks before election day. “With both Social Security and Medicare on the path to insolvency, the President has proposed to do nothing. The Social Security and Medicare Trustees have concluded that doing nothing – the President’s plan – will result in seniors seeing their Social Security benefits cut by 25% in 2033 and that the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted in 2024. As President-elect Obama acknowledged in early 2009, we can’t kick the can down the road any further. But rather than offering an honest proposal to protect and strengthen these programs, the President offers just more empty promises.”


HOWEVER, anyone who actually bothered to look into the fact that this is a "bipartisan board" would note the following requirement:

"http://www.ssab.gov/AbouttheBoard/AuthorizingStatute.aspx

Structure and Membership of the Board
(c)(1) The Board shall be composed of 7 members who shall be appointed as follows:
(A) 3 members shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Not more than 2 of such members shall be from the same political party.
(B) 2 members (each member from a different political party) shall be appointed by the President pro tempore of the Senate with the advice of the Chairman and the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Committee on Finance.
(C) 2 members (each member from a different political party) shall be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, with the advice of the Chairman and the Ranking Minority Member of the House Committee on Ways and Means."

Oh.... So there have to be Republicans on this board. Oh.....

I'm sorry, no criticisms of Obama related to this are legitimate. He's not doing anything that is even remotely nefarious here. He's following the law and the practices of appointments to the advisory board that go back to the board's creation. Any insinuation of anything else related to this quite literally doesn't have to be paid attention to.

[Scuba]

1. Who are the other members of this board? Which two were nominated by the President?

What are their backgrounds?

Does the third member appointed by the President have to be a Republican, or simply not a Democrat? Why not an Independent or Green Party member?

Why does the article say ""President Barack Obama announced Monday that he is nominating Lanhee Chen" if in fact Chen was nominated by someone else?

It's one thing to comply with the requirement that only two member can be from the same Party, it's quite another to appoint a far-right-wing idealogue who has declared SS "on the path to insolvency" when that is simply not true.


I'm not saying the President betrayed us here, but the appointment of Chen is not in the best interests of the American People. The several posts I've seen like yours claim the President had no choice, but fail to make that case. Perhaps you can provide additional information to support your assertion.