The Senate Finance Committee will hold a confirmation hearing today on Frank Bisignano’s nomination to be commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
The hearing is scheduled to start at 10:10 a.m. ET and last about two and a half hours.
Bisignano will likely face questions on the future of the SSA as talk of privatizing the agency have ramped up. The hearing also comes on the heels of threats from the acting commissioner to shut down the agency after a federal judge barred the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive personal data.
The top Democrat on the Finance Committee, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent a letter to Bisignano yesterday asking whether he supports privatizing Social Security, and whether he would be willing to undo recent changes made, such as the closure of dozens of Social Security offices, mass agency layoffs and new administrative requirements for beneficiaries.
“These new developments leave us deeply concerned that DOGE and the Trump Administration are setting up the SSA for failure — a failure that could cut off Social Security benefits for millions of Americans — and that will then be used to justify a ‘private sector fix.’ Republicans have flirted with the idea of privatizing Social Security for over two decades,” the senators wrote in the letter.
“The latest changes at the Social Security Administration leave us worried that Elon Musk — with his clear disdain for the program that provides financial security to millions of Americans — has taken up the mantle as the latest privatization crusader,” they added.
The hearing will likely get heated, as Democrats are expected to press Bisignano on whether he agrees with the approach DOGE and the acting commissioner have taken so far, as well as his thoughts on threats to customer service and timely benefits, and Elon Musk and Trump’s claims about fraud in Social Security.
Warren told NBC News yesterday that she plans to press Bisignano on a wide range of topics.
“The Social Security administrator nominee needs to come clean with the American people. Is he in favor of the cuts that Elon Musk and his DOGE boys are trying to execute at the Social Security Administration? Or does he plan, once he has the power, to put a stop to it? Is he in favor of the privatization of Social Security that many Republicans are still advancing? Or does he plan to make a stand and put a stop to it? That’s what I want to hear from him,” Warren said.
Bisignano is the chief executive officer of payments technology at Fiserv, which some Democrats have raised concerns since the company could benefit from any privatization of Social Security.
