Frank Bisignano Confirmation Hearing

Senator Mike Crapo (01:38):

As we have done with other nominees, this meeting this morning will provide members with the opportunity to make remarks on Dr. Oz's nomination. We'll notify members of a time and location later today to conduct the vote. Dr. Oz has years of experience as an acclaimed physician and public health advocate. His background makes him uniquely qualified to manage the intricacies of CMS. At his hearing, Dr. Oz discussed his vision to ensure CMS provides Americans with access to superb care, especially our most vulnerable patients. I look forward to working with him if confirmed to accomplish this goal. I was also encouraged to hear that he will focus on modernizing federal healthcare programs, work to fix our broken clinician payment system, and will partner with Congress to achieve pharmaceutical benefit manager reform. There is no doubt that Dr. Oz will work tirelessly to deliver much-needed change at CMS. I'll be voting in favor of his nomination and I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same. I now recognize Ranking Member Wyden for his remarks.

Senator Ronald Lee Wyden (02:46):

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Later today we're going to vote on the Oz nomination. I'm just going to spend a few minutes describing why I can't support the nomination. During his confirmation hearing, Dr. Oz was given the chance to assure the American people that he would not be a rubber stamp for Republican plans to gut Medicaid and hike Affordable Care Act premiums. At every turn, he failed the test. When I asked him a yes or no question about whether he would protect Medicaid, he dodged, he weaved, he simply wouldn't answer. That's a stark contrast to what I heard at town hall meetings opened all in Oregon the past week. In Oregon City, I was joined by Patty and Katina, a mom and a daughter who count on Medicaid to help with Katina's medical expenses. Because of Medicaid, Katina can thrive in the community as an Oregonian who lives with Down syndrome.

(03:46)
There are countless other families in Oregon and across the country who are terrified of these cuts. Mr. Dr. Oz also ducked a number of my other questions. When pressed on whether nurses belong in nursing homes, he replied, "That was a complicated question." I just found that a jaw-dropper. It isn't complicated for the rest of us whether nursing homes ought to have adequate staff to take your mom to the bathroom or give your grandpa meals. I told Dr. Oz it was pretty simple. Not only did the nominee dodge and weave during questioning in his confirmation hearing, he also failed to provide factual responses to our written questions submitted after the hearing.

(04:32)
This lack of responsiveness to Congress ought to be unacceptable to every member of our committee, but the Republican majority once again seems eager to disregard their own congressional oversight responsibilities when Donald Trump calls the shots. I'll once again state that Dr. Oz is the second Trump nominee to come before this committee with a record of dodging Medicare and social security taxes. Nurses and firefighters across America pay taxes with every single hard-earned paycheck, but the multimillionaire nominated to run Medicare can't be bothered to do the same thing. Mr. Chairman, this is a continuation of our efforts to spotlight healthcare middlemen that in my view are leeching off the healthcare system at the expense of taxpayers and seniors. Our investigation found that too many for-profit insurance companies are spending billions of taxpayer dollars on marketing middlemen to drown seniors in calls and mailers. These tactics are designed to pressure them into enrolling in private health plans that might not even cover their preferred doctor or medicines or that may put up unexpected roadblocks to getting the care they need. Insurance companies and these marketing middlemen have orchestrated a complex and complicated system to line the pockets of shareholders by raising costs for seniors and taxpayers and invading oversight and accountability. Given Dr. Oz's history of basically acting as a salesman for Medicare Advantage, putting them in charge of regulating these middlemen is almost like letting the fox guard the proverbial hen house. The bottom line is that American tax dollars are in too many instances being used for profit by profit insurance companies for shady marketing practices that take advantage of older people.

(06:41)
For-profit insurance companies spend five times more on marketing and administrative expenses than traditional Medicare, which is of course run by the government. If Elon Musk and his cronies at DOGE actually cared about targeting waste and fraud, they'd be focused on waste in Medicare Advantage rather than targeting Americans hard-earned social security. We've successfully fought for more consumer protections against predatory MA marketing, and I asked Dr. Oz to pledge not to roll those protections back. He may be open to our concerns on that and if he's confirmed, I'm going to hold him to that and watchdog this issue spotlighting abuses. But the bottom line colleagues is that this is an ability who has shown… To a nominee who has shown no ability to or interest in pushing back on the dangerous Trump healthcare agenda. I urge my colleagues to vote no.

Senator Mike Crapo (07:34):

Thank you, Senator Wyden. We will now turn to any senator wanting to make a statement. I ask each of you who do choose to make a statement to keep your remarks to three minutes or less so we can keep on time for our social security nominee. Senator Cantwell, you're next.

Senator Maria Cantwell (07:49):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I'm speaking about this pivotal vote today because I want to be clear about the devastating impacts that Medicaid will have on our constituents that is included in the House Republican budget. While I appreciate Dr. Oz's willingness to consider some interesting and important reforms like PBMs or the Basic Health Plan, he was unwilling to commit to opposing a cut to Medicaid. The math is clear, the proposal from the house budget would require massive cuts to Medicaid and I appreciate that my Republican Senate colleagues know this and which is why it's not in their particular proposal. But now we have to fight the negotiations between the House and the Senate and hold our colleagues accountable to protect this important program. I know Dr. Oz won't. He wouldn't commit, he would not say no and certainly not no to Donald President Trump or Elon Musk or to the House of Representatives. The House Committee that oversees Medicaid and Medicare is responsible for funding $880 billion from these cuts.

(08:52)
So you can see from this chart the only real place to get this is particularly if Medicare is off the table is from Medicaid. Even if the committee completely eliminated every single other program in the ENC account, it still gives them one-sixth of what they need. So make no mistake, there is no other way to meet this mandate, but then to impact Medicaid. My colleagues who are trying to play down this thread or act like there's some other way around it, it's just not so. It's either bad math or bad faith. Anyone who's telling their constituents is just not being honest with them. Last week I spoke in my state in Seattle, Spokane and Tri-Cities about these Medicaid cuts and was joined by physicians, hospital providers, patients who do not want to shoulder this burden. A patient like Gail Halverson from Spokane who was terrified that the system that provided her and her late partner who just passed with affordable healthcare will no longer be there for them.

(09:55)
She told me, "Who's going to pay for the nursing home? That's Medicare or Medicaid. So are we just going to be left to die?" Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with the most advanced trauma care in the region receives 39% of their revenue from Medicaid. The CEO told me that the cut of this magnitude would be existential. So everyone knows that this issue is on the table and yet we don't have a nominee before us who will say clearly he doesn't plan to cut Medicaid. According to the Congressional budget office, Medicaid related expenditures account for 93% of the non-Medicare spending in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The lion's share will absolutely have to come from Medicaid. It's time to now get a nominee who would support that? That is not Dr. Oz. So, with this tsunami of cuts that we're looking at, I cannot support this nomination. I hope my colleagues will turn it down as well and I hope our colleagues will join us in a fight to say no cuts to Medicaid. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Mike Crapo (11:03):

Thank you Senator Cantwell, and I appreciate your keeping the three-minute time limit. Next is Senator Hassan.

Senator Maggie Hassan (11:09):

Well, thank you Mr. Chair and Ranking Member Wyden for this markup and this opportunity to discuss the serious implications of having Dr. Oz oversee healthcare for more than 160 million Americans. First of all, Dr. Oz has shown a dangerous willingness to say or do anything that President Trump directs him to do. And during his hearing, Dr. Oz refused to commit to following the law in the event that President Trump directs him to do something illegal. That failure to commit is disqualifying. If confirmed, Dr. Oz would also be tasked with implementing the devastating cuts to Medicaid proposed by congressional Republicans, which could lead to as many as 30,000 children in my state losing their health insurance. Granted, staters want Congress to increase access to healthcare, not a budget plan that would take healthcare away from children, seniors and nursing homes and thousands of people living in rural areas of my state.

(12:13)
Dr. Oz is one of several Trump administration nominees that say that they recognize the real difference that Medicaid and other health programs make, and yet they are joining an administration and are supported by Congressional Republicans who plan to slash the health coverage and programs that people rely on. In my state that includes parents that I just met yesterday of a young man with autism whose healthcare is provided by both Medicaid and Medicare and would not be able to obtain private insurance otherwise. It's also my constituent up in the north country over the last week expressed her concern that her twins with severe disabilities would also be pushed off of Medicaid, leaving her and her family without access to critical care for them. Finally, I will note that a number of states, including my state of New Hampshire, has something called a trigger law that applies to its Medicaid expansion program.

(13:14)
Should the degree of federal funding for Medicaid expansion, which among other things provides critical mental health care and addiction treatment, should that go below 90%, which was the federal commitment for Medicaid expansion, 10 states in this country will automatically lose Medicaid expansion. So the implications here are real, they are serious, and Dr. Oz's assertion that he cares about Medicaid, that he understands how important it is, is belied by his unwillingness, as Senator Cantwell pointed out, to commit to protecting the Medicaid program and his willingness to join this administration. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing the confirmation of Dr. Oz. Thank you.

Senator Mike Crapo (14:06):

Thank you, Senator Hassan and Senator Smith and Senator Luján have agreed to let Senator Warnock go next.

Senator Raphael Warnock (14:14):

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Long before I came to the Senate, I was fighting for my state to expand Medicaid, which would give an estimated 600,000 Georgians access to affordable healthcare. But here we are, 15 years almost to the day of the Affordable Care Act being signed into law and still Georgia has not expanded Medicaid. Georgia continues to deny its citizens access to this program that's being supported by the tax-paying Georgians. To make matters worse, now Washington Republicans have proposed to gut almost $900 billion from Medicaid to give millionaires and billionaires an additional tax cut, potentially kicking millions of Americans off of their healthcare insurance. Medicaid covers almost 40 million children across the country, two in five children in Georgia, one in 10 veterans, 63% of seniors in nursing homes. Medicaid also supports one-fifth of all hospital spending, especially in communities without many hospital options.

(15:31)
Washington Republicans and Dr. Oz say they want to make Medicaid more efficient by requiring people who get their health insurance through Medicaid to fill out government paperwork each month to prove that they are working. Here are the facts. Here are the facts. Nearly all adults enrolled in Medicaid are either working, in school, or caregivers. By and large, if they can work, they do work. I know that may be hard to believe in a country that increasingly maligns poor people for being poor, but by and large, these folks are already working or they're caregivers or their students. They are construction workers, they're restaurant servers and mechanics. They're doing exactly what Dr. Oz and Washington Republicans want them to do. But here's the deal, Republicans need a whole lot of money to pay for their tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. And they know if you give people enough bureaucratic hoops to jump through, then enough working people will get tripped up by the red tape and lose their healthcare.

(16:35)
And so that's the plan. Less money spent on a working mom's cancer treatment because she didn't fill out the right form every month by the right deadline, so you have more money for billionaire tax cuts. We know this because I live in Georgia. Georgia is the only state with work reporting requirements in its Medicaid program and all of this program has to show for itself, five years later is 6,500 people enrolled. We've got nearly 600,000 Georgians who are in the Medicaid gap. The governor's program has enrolled a whopping 6,500 people. Mr. Chair, I know I'm running out of time, but as I close and nobody believes a Baptist preacher when he says as I close. Let me be really clear that I'm voting against Dr. Oz. I think he is certainly more knowledgeable than Secretary Kennedy about the program that he's tasked to lead, but we've got to take seriously the needs of millions of Americans who will lose their healthcare. And so I'm voting no for its nomination and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Senator Mike Crapo (17:49):

Thank you. Senator Smith.

Senator Tina Smith (17:50):

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm speaking today in opposition to the nomination of Dr. Oz to be the administrator of CMS. I'm voting no because of what I see as a concerted effort by the Trump administration and some congressional Republicans to use Medicaid as an ATM to pay for tax breaks for the biggest, most successful corporations and wealthy individuals. And at a time when Minnesotans are struggling to afford their lives and President Trump's policies are making it worse, not better, I can't support the nomination of Dr. Oz who will be an enthusiastic participant and a plan that will make Medicaid health insurance harder to get and more expensive. Now in my home state of Minnesota, 1.2 million people get their health insurance through Medicaid. These are seniors and nursing homes, moms and their kids, working families, people with disabilities and patients struggling with mental and behavioral health challenges.

(18:45)
Medicaid is the health insurance that covers more than half of nursing home residents in our state and it covers one in three Minnesota children and it is the biggest health insurer for mental and behavioral healthcare for Minnesotans and Americans. That's 15 million Americans. I mean, here's the reality. Taking away health insurance coverage from people won't cut sickness. People will still need healthcare, they just won't be able to get it in the most efficient, cost-effective way. They will get it in emergency rooms, not doctor's offices. Taking away healthcare insurance will hurt people and that is the most important issue at stake here, but it will also cost more money at the end of the day. Mr. Chair, I was home this past weekend, this past week, and I have heard so many stories about Medicaid and how it saves lives. I want to share one story with the committee.

(19:37)
Last week I met a remarkable young woman appropriately. Her name is Hope. As a teenager and young adult, Hope suffered from debilitating and life-threatening psychosis. "If it weren't for Medicaid," says Hope, "I would not be alive today." In Minnesota, Medicaid covers inpatient mental health care. Hope was committed and she was treated in inpatient care and she got intensive treatment for her psychosis covered by Medicaid. A diagnosis of psychosis can feel so hopeless, but Hope was able to get intensive care. She needed to learn how to understand and control her illness, and today she's able to live independently and is able to manage her mental health. And today she gets her health insurance through her employer. So colleagues, I am voting no on Dr. Oz because I do not trust him or this administration to follow the law and to protect our healthcare. I cannot trust him or this administration to run CMS to protect access to healthcare for Hope or for the 1.2 million Minnesotans who get their insurance through Medicaid. Thank you, Mr. chair.

Senator Mike Crapo (20:44):

Thank you, Senator Smith. Senator Luján.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (20:47):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, recently a mom from New Mexico shared the story of her son who was diagnosed with hemophilia at the age of six. Six-year-olds should be entering the first grade, outside playing with neighbors, watching superhero movies, arguing with their siblings about whose turn it is to do the dishes. Six-year-olds should not have to worry about whether or not they get to see a doctor or whether they will get the medicine they need to feel better so they can do all the things a six-year-old should be doing. That mom from New Mexico told me she is scared. Scared that if her son's Medicaid is ripped away, she'll lose her son.

(21:33)
Now I know that each of us is hearing similar stories from our constituents and based on news accounts, there were lots of town halls and gatherings across America this last week. Somewhere members of the House participated, somewhere there was just an empty chair. From the meetings I had with this nominee and from what I've seen so far from this administration, it's clear to me that they plan to gut the Medicaid program that serves 784, 000 New Mexicans. That's 784,000 lives that depend on this coverage to survive, get the help they need and the medical support that is crucial to living happy and productive lives. I will not stand by and watch as families are left behind by this administration. There are better ways to improve our health system, but slashing essential programs like Medicaid to pay for a Trump tax scam is not one of them.

(22:29)
I cannot support a nominee who will tear apart a healthcare system to justify giving millionaires and billionaires more money. Folks making 2 million bucks a year, congratulations. I wish them well. I hope they make more. To the folks across the country making the median income and less, shouldn't they be getting the brunt of this tax cut? That's where this should be going. This isn't about wealthy people or not. This is about who deserves help, support across the country. That's what we're talking about here. So I urge my colleagues to think about the millions of Americans, their constituents, my constituents who depend on the programs that this nominee will have control over and I urge them to vote no. I yield pack.

Senator Mike Crapo (23:15):

Thank you. Senator Whitehouse.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (23:18):

Thanks very much, Chairman. First of all, let me express my appreciation to Senator Cantwell for her remarks, which I thought pretty well summarized where we are with respect to the looming attack on Medicaid. I just want to point out that in Rhode Island, 60% of our nursing home folks are funded by Medicaid and nursing homes are not in great shape to begin with. This could be a case not only of people's aunts and grandmothers losing the funding that keeps them in the nursing home, but the nursing home not being able to survive financially.

(23:58)
45% of births in Rhode Island at Women & Infants Hospital, which is a legendarily expert OBGYN hospital, are funded by Medicaid. But for a variety of reasons, Women & Infants can't afford to have Medicaid stripped away and it would put that hospital in financial peril to lose Medicaid. And then many of us lived through the opioid epidemic. Senator Hassan up in New Hampshire experienced the same sort of thing that we did in Rhode Island and many of the people in Rhode Island and around the country who are in that brave and noble path to addiction recovery are supported by Medicaid, and to undercut them would be cruel as well as stupid.

(24:45)
I have three topics that I've raised with Dr. Oz that I'd like to get some progress on. It looks like when CMS in a massive abundance of stupidity turned on one of its best performing national ACOs and tried to strip it because of a brief and disputed departure below the 5,000 patient minimum, that got thrown out by a court. It shows how weak the CMS case was. And I hope that CMS doesn't go back for revenge and leaves things as they are and lets one of the nation's highest performing ACOs continue to be a high performing ACO. Rhode Island suffers from a 20 plus percent differential in payments. Backus Hospital is probably 25 minutes from our border and Connecticut. Saint Anne's is probably five minutes from our border in Massachusetts. Neither of those hospitals provide the high-level services that Rhode Island Hospital and Women & Infants Hospital and Hasbro Children's Hospital all in the same campus provide, and yet they're paid more.

(25:51)
And CMS sits on its hands and couldn't care less about doing anything about that differential even as it erodes the financial security of Rhode Island's healthcare base. And last of all, I've been working with CMS since the first Trump administration and it's been groundhog damn day with people changing and having to get back to square one on trying to let Rhode Island be a model for a better way to treat families and patients where the individual's nearing the end of their life. We do really stupid things to people because of Medicare rules that don't make any sense in that circumstance and make even less sense when there's a value-based care model that's in place. So I hope we can make some real progress on those three things and we have to defend Medicaid. It's just wrong to go after it. Thank you, Chairman.

Senator Mike Crapo (26:42):

Thank you. Senator Welch, did you wish to make a statement at this point? All right, I think Senator Marshall, you are the wrap-up.

Senator Roger Marshall (26:51):

Okay, Chairman, thank you so much. And this is such a very important topic. I just want to emphasize that as I talk to President Trump and the administration and my fellow Republicans, we're here to save Medicaid. We're here to save it, that we want to strengthen Medicaid for the most vulnerable and then that's our goal. And I look forward to working with my colleagues across the aisle on figuring out how to save it. But I think you would also agree with me that what we're spending on Medicaid now looks like a rocket ship that we've increased spending on Medicaid by 50% over the last five years. We'll spend a trillion dollars this year on Medicaid. We want to make sure that Medicaid dollars are spent on the most vulnerable of people, the ones that really, really need it as well. That should be the focus is on how we save Medicaid. I think there's opportunities.

(27:49)
When you're spending a [inaudible 00:27:51], it's been manipulated. They found loopholes to manipulate and now we're spending probably 83 billion more a year on Medicare Advantage patients as opposed to they'd been on traditional Medicare. And I think similar situations are happening with Medicaid managed care systems as well. So I look forward to working with my colleagues across the aisle, and I hope that there's an amendment or there's an opportunity to fix that very broken system that my friends across the aisle who speak so boldly about changing Medicare Advantage, that they'll vote for reforming it as well whenever we had that opportunity. So again, just emphasize that Republicans are here to save Medicaid, that we want to make sure that we strengthen Medicaid for the most vulnerable of our society who needs it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Mike Crapo (28:47):

Thank you, Senator Marshall. Now procedurally, so everyone understands what will happen with regard to this nomination, the committee will recess at this point briefly before we then move to our social security hearing and we will reconvene to vote on the nomination of Dr. Oz off the Senate floor at a time to be announced today when we know when the votes are happening. Members will be notified at the time that we get that confirmed. The committee will be recessed briefly until we begin the next hearing.

Senator Mike Crapo (39:33):

The committee will come to order. Today we will consider the nomination of Frank Bisignano to be the commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Mr. Bisignano, congratulations on your nomination and welcome to you and your family. Thank you for your willingness to serve and for your cooperation with this committee throughout our rigorous vetting process. Both sides have generally agreed the Social Security Administration needs a confirmed commissioner to address the ongoing challenges at the agency. I commend President Trump for putting forward a commissioner nominee so early in this administration.

(40:14)
Mr. Bisignano has more than 30 years of executive leadership experience at leading financial institutions. He's brought a focus on innovation and operational excellence to his current role as chief executive officer of Fiserv, a leader in payments and financial technology that is responsible for processing more than $2.5 trillion in payments daily. Mr. Bisignano, if confirmed, you will be responsible for leading an agency with a critical mission and numerous operational and customer service challenges as you will hear this morning. Based on your background, I'm confident you're up to the task. It's hard to overstate the importance of Social Security, which provides monthly benefits to millions of seniors, individuals with disabilities and their families.

(41:02)
The Social Security Administration has the responsibility of overseeing this important program as well as the supplemental security income program, assigning Social Security numbers and issuing Social Security cards among other workloads. In carrying out these significant responsibilities, the Social Security Administration interacts with millions of customers each year, whether in person, by phone, or online. The public expects the agency to provide responsive service and timely decisions on their claims. However, the SSA faces many challenges in meeting these expectations. After years of implementation delays and the ultimate failure of its next generation telephony project, SSA has made some progress with its national 800 number, including introducing a callback option.

(41:57)
However much more is needed. Callers to national 800 number who want to wait for a representative are still spending too long on hold and many still struggle to actually get through to a representative when they call. Americans also continue to wait too long for an initial disability decision, particularly in certain parts of the country. SSA's shift to an appointment-focused approach for field office visits underscores the need for SSA to make it easier for customers to schedule appointments online. The Trump administration has been clear that it is focused on addressing waste, fraud, and abuse across government agencies, and I applaud its efforts to maximize government productivity.

(42:45)
A Senate-confirmed commissioner should be leading these efficiency efforts. Mr. Bisignano, if confirmed to serve as the next commissioner of Social Security, this responsibility will be falling to you. I urge you to take a thoughtful, measured and data-driven approach to evaluating policy and operational changes aimed at improving SSA's efficiency and productivity. If you need additional tools that require statutory changes, I urge you to bring those changes to this committee and our house counterparts. Today's hearing will provide an opportunity to hear more about your vision for Social Security and how we can work together to help ensure that the SSA fulfills its critical mission. Thank you again for your willingness to serve and congratulations on your nomination, which I intend to support. With that, I recognize Ranking Member Wyden for his opening remarks.

MR. WYDEN (43:41):

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This morning the finance committee gathers to discuss the future of the Social Security Administration and its potential new leader, Frank Bisignano. Today's news brings fresh reports that it is bedlam out there in Social Security. That's what I heard last week from senior Social Security staffers at a town hall meeting I arranged in my hometown of Portland for federal employees. Senior Social Security staff told me that they were short-staffed even before DOGE arrived, how they can't respond on the phone, how the websites are crashing and seniors are getting lost in the system. It is clear that this is happening around America today. Every day there's more hard evidence of this. So I believe it is time to bring a halt to DOGE's destruction of Social Security before it goes any further.

(44:52)
With these developments, the DOGE crowd is breaking a sacred promise to deliver Americans their earned Social Security benefits, and it is time for every member of this committee to step up and commit to rolling back these disastrous actions and bringing sanity back to Social Security. Today's hearing is going to be an opportunity for our nominee to tell the American people whose side is he on. Is he on the side of American workers who paid into Social Security and now are being whipsawed by the DOGE bureaucracy or is he on the side of Elon Musk and Howard Lutnick, the Donald Trump cronies who think Social Security is a pyramid scheme and that seniors looking for help when their checks don't come on time must somehow be fraudsters. The urgency for today's hearing couldn't be greater. Since Donald Trump took office Social Security has experienced the most chaos in its history. Mass personnel layoffs, eliminating phone service for basic help, sending seniors to overcrowded and understaffed field offices that have also been put on the chopping block for closure.

(46:10)
Political appointees poking around your most sensitive private information, creating a big risk for what I call the mother of all identity thefts, claims of massive fraud by Donald Trump and Elon Musk. This approach is a prescription for denying earned benefits to seniors and Americans with disabilities, and I want to be clear as we begin this discussion. If Americans lose access to their Social Security because of Trump-spawn chaos, that is DOGE stealing their money. Both Donald Trump and Elon Musk have repeated claims that there are millions of Social Security numbers assigned to people over 150 years of age and they're still drawing benefits. Elon Musk says there's a massive amount of fraud and that Social Security is, quote, "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time."

(47:10)
Donald Trump says that money is being paid to, quote, "many Americans over age of 100." Donald Trump thinks more than 1,000 people over 220 years of age are actually being paid by Social Security. Many Americans may be wondering if those individuals are still receiving their Revolutionary War pensions at this point. These are lies. Here's some facts. Last year the Social Security Inspector General issued a report showing Social Security retirement and disability has a criminal fraud rate of, get this, 0.009%. By the way, as a percentage, that's much lower than the 1.4 billion in assets that reportedly went missing on the Tesla balance sheet just last week.

(48:00)
Social Security itself reported 89,000 Americans aged 99 and over receiving benefits in December of last year, and Social Security automatically stops paying benefits at age 115 even if a death has not been reported. So don't take it from me, check this sign. It says, "Why DOGE is struggling to find fraud in Social Security." So what's behind these lies on Social Security" in my view, they're deliberately misleading the public to set the stage for cuts to Social Security benefits that are going to be draped in anti-fraud rhetoric the same way we're hearing the case being made for cutting Medicaid. Let's be clear again, Senate Democrats are going to fight attempts to cut Americans earned benefits at every single turn.

(48:58)
Our nominee has made a career out of taking over troubled businesses and using what I think is a pretty ominous recipe, gut the company by firing hundreds or thousands of workers, sell off pieces of the business and merge with another company. That resume and approach ought to concern Americans if somebody is thinking about applying that pattern to Social Security. As I've been saying for weeks now, this approach is a prelude to privatizing Social Security and handing it over to private equity. Every single member of this committee knows that there are ways to strengthen Social Security. But what Social Security does well year after year is to get the checks out the door to seniors that rely on them on time every single month.

(49:43)
I'll close by saying improving Social Security doesn't start with shuttering the offices that handle modernization, anti-fraud activities and civil rights violations. It doesn't start with indiscriminately firing or buying out thousands of workers. And it doesn't start with restricting customer service over the phone and drawing up plans to close field and regional offices. The Musk, Lutnick, Trump plan for Social Security is to take away earned benefits from seniors, hollow out the agency in preparation to hand it over to private equity and give the savings over to their billionaire friends. The fact of the matter is Social Security could be fully funded for generations to come if you just cracked down on billionaire tax cheats and eliminated the payroll tax cap for millionaires and billionaires.

(50:34)
This year alone, the finance committee has considered multiple Trump nominees that for one strategy or another, have figured out ways to avoid paying what they owe into the programs that they are being nominated to actually run. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent paid little to no Medicare tax and Dr. Oz managed to avoid paying both Medicare and Social Security. So this morning our nominee has an opportunity to share his vision for improving Social Security, not dismantling it. And Americans deserve to hear this individual's vision for making customer service easier, not creating more roadblocks, which seem to get more and more strong each day. Americans deserve to hear a clear rejection of Elon Musk's view that Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme perpetrating fraud on the American people. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Senator Mike Crapo (51:31):

In a moment, Mr. Bisignano will share his opening statement. Before doing so, I'll provide a short introduction. Mr. Bisignano has more than 30 years of executive leadership experience in banks and global financial institutions. He currently serves as the Chairman of the board and Chief Executive Officer of Fiserv Inc., a leader in payments and financial technology. Fiserv serves clients in more than 100 countries and processes $ 2.5 trillion in payments with over 850 million daily transactions. Fiserv has been recognized as a leading company by Fortune, Forbes, Time, and Newsweek among others. Prior to becoming CEO and Chairman of First Data Core, which combined with Fiserv Mr. Bisignano was Co-Chief operating officer for JPMorganChase and the Chief Executive Officer of its mortgage banking unit.

(52:29)
After the housing crisis, the mortgage banking unit reported 2012 net income of $3.3 billion, a turnaround that reversed a net loss of $2.1 billion in the prior year. Before joining JPMorganChase Mr. Bisignano held several roles at Citigroup that included Chief Administrative Officer for the corporate and investment bank and CEO of Citigroup's Global Transactions Services business, the largest securities and cash management business in the world. While CAO, he served as the firm-wide deputy head of technology and operations, a post he held during the 9/11 when he deployed and ran Citigroup's business continuity plan. Mr. Bisignano, before you give your opening statement, I have four obligatory questions that we ask all nominees before the Senate Finance Committee. First, is there anything that you are aware of in your background that might present a conflict of interest with the duties of the office to which you've been nominated?

MR. BISIGNANO (53:36):

No, sir.

Senator Mike Crapo (53:37):

Second, do you know of any reason, personal or otherwise, that would in any way prevent you from fully and honorably discharging the responsibilities of the office to which you've been nominated?

MR. BISIGNANO (53:48):

No, sir.

Senator Mike Crapo (53:50):

Do you agree, without reservation, to respond to any reasonable summons to appear and testify before any duly constituted committee of the Congress if you are confirmed?

MR. BISIGNANO (54:00):

I do agree.

Senator Mike Crapo (54:01):

And finally, do you commit to providing a prompt response in writing to any questions addressed to you by any senator of this committee?

MR. BISIGNANO (54:09):

100%.

Senator Mike Crapo (54:11):

Thank you. Mr. Bisignano, before you begin your opening statement, if you would like, you may introduce your family.

MR. BISIGNANO (54:16):

I have my wife here, Tracy, and I have three children at home, Morgan, Alexa, and Henry. And they all support me very, very much and they're very, very happy we're here today.

Senator Mike Crapo (54:32):

Thank you. We welcome them in person and at home. You may begin your statement.

MR. BISIGNANO (54:38):

Chairman Crapo, Ranking Member Wyden, members of the committee, I'm Frank Bisignano. I'm honored to appear before you as President's nominee to serve as commissioner of the Social Security Administration. President Trump was elected by the American people to make life better for Americans and he has made protecting and preserving Social Security an important part of his vision. Social Security touches lives of nearly every American, whether you're paying into it or receiving benefits. I'm grateful for the faith President Trump has placed in me to lead this critical agency. I also want to thank my wife, Tracy, who is here with me today and my three children, Morgan, Alexa, and Henry, whose support I rely on every day.

(55:36)
I was born into a working-class family in Brooklyn, New York. It was a multi-generational immigrant household. My maternal grandfather naturally immigrated and was a World War I veteran. My father who was an orphan by age 11 was a veteran of World War II. They, with my working mother, were my role models and instilled in me the virtues of service. It was also at home I learned the importance of hard work. My father, a 46-year Department of Treasury employee, worked in customs enforcement, boarding ships early in the morning and sometimes wouldn't come home for days. He took pride in his job and he was awarded the Albert Gallatin Award. He was the hardest working person I've known. I view federal workers from that point.

(56:37)
I began my professional life on Wall Street in the late 1970s and went on to serve in multiple leadership positions at Citigroup and JPMorgan. In these roles and others I led large organizations through challenging times. On 9/11, I never left lower-Manhattan. As Chief Administrative Officer of Citigroup, I helped ensure the world's largest banking system remained up and running in the face of the unthinkable tragedy. I had responsibility for 16,000 people in lower-Manhattan and we managed to evacuate all but six. I will mourn that loss for my whole life. In 2008 at JPMorgan, I played a critical role in keeping money moving through the financial crisis. And in 2011 and 12, I worked closely with the government to restart the housing market after the mortgage crisis.

(57:36)
More recently, I was the CEO and Chairman of First Data where my team and I worked to transform the company from the world's largest traditional payment processor into a technology innovator, industry collaborator, and commerce enabler for the 21st century. In 2019, I led the merger of First Data and Fiserv, where I'm currently CEO and Chairman of the board. Fiserv fundamentally serves every American household. Our company today process more than 250 million payments, totaling more than two and a half trillion dollars a day. Social Security processes 74 million payments a month totaling 1.5 trillion a year.

(58:27)
In 2020 during COVID, I was called on by the government again and stepped up and we served the underbanked. My friend, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, once said, "The only just government is government that serves its citizens, not itself." This is the belief I will bring to Social Security Administration. I'll make the agency a premier services organization as I have done multiple times with other institutions throughout my career. Fundamentally, Social Security is a payments-based customer-facing program that delivers benefits to more than 70 million Americans each month. It provides essential financial support for the retired and disabled. We will meet beneficiaries where they want to be met, whether in person, in field offices, on the web, or on the phone. On the phone. I'm committed to reducing wait times and providing beneficiaries with a better experience. Waiting 20 minutes plus to get an answer will be of yesteryear.

(59:42)
I also believe we can significantly improve the length of the disability claim process. Importantly, I think a 1% error rate based on the Inspector General report is five decimal places too high. We'll get the error rate down and be more accurate in payments. Working in collaboration with the men and women of Social Security Administration and you in Congress, we will better serve the American people. Finally, at the core, this is a bipartisan job. Social Security has field offices and serves Americans in every state. In the wisdom of Congress, you made Social Security an independent agency and gave the commissioner a six-year term. In me you'll have an accountable leader. I am thankful to President Trump for considering me for this role and entrusting me with it. I also appreciate the courtesy you have extended by holding this hearing. I'm grateful for being here with you today and I'm happy to answer all questions.

Senator Mike Crapo (01:01:05):

Thank you very much, Mr. Bisignano. My first question is, one you've pretty much already answered. I'd just like to maybe give you an opportunity to add any more completeness to what you described about how important it is to be sure that every American is served promptly and efficiently by the Social Security Administration. As you know, and as we've talked about, for years, individuals seeking assistance from SSA have faced long wait times or even inability to gain access, and the agency is now going under significant organizational changes.

MR. BISIGNANO (01:01:43):

… honor to be here and thank you for the time. This is a mission-critical function. It's a mission-critical function and it's been 89 years where over 200 million American have been beneficiaries of payments. Today, over 100 million Americans pay into the system. And the ability to receive payments on time and accurately is job one. The ability to process any type of claim we receive is job one, and the ability to be available. I think we're going to focus on what we need to do to drive the 1% error rate down. That's a very high payment processing error rate and I think the standard's more five decimal points to the right. I think that leads to better accuracy. I believe in running an organization with a multidisciplinary look. We have to deliver great service. We have to run a pristine control environment, so we do it right the first time.

(01:02:57)
Efficiency will be the output of those two actions. We must put the beneficiaries first. I think management, this is according to all the public data I've looked at, this has been one of the less satisfied workforces for many years within all the government agencies. And I think when you're winning, you feel good and when you're losing, you feel bad. And my objective is to come in and motivate the workforce we have, 50,000 plus, to be able to get our job right the first time for the American public. I think we have talent all over like any organization and we have very dedicated people in there, but I think there's been a lot of leadership change. If you look at the history of commissioners, they've turned over quite a bit.

Mr. Bisignano (01:04:00):

I'm committed to a six-year term and to do a great job for the American public and to be here for you. Thank you.

Senator Mike Crapo (01:04:07):

Well, thank you very much. And I'm sure you've noticed the daily news on President Trump's effort with the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE. You've heard about it today already. I bet you'll hear about it some more. The Social Security Administration is one of the agencies that has received a lot of media attention regarding these efforts. For the record, are you currently at the Social Security Administration?

Mr. Bisignano (01:04:32):

I'm not at the Social Security Administration, sir.

Senator Mike Crapo (01:04:35):

Have you been consulted by the acting commissioner about DOGE's work at the Social Security Administration?

Mr. Bisignano (01:04:42):

I have not had a conversation about anything with this social commissioner,-

Senator Mike Crapo (01:04:47):

Thank you.

Mr. Bisignano (01:04:48):

Who's acting right now.

Senator Mike Crapo (01:04:49):

Thank you. And during a February five interview on CNBC, you voiced your support for DOGE's work generally. Is there anything further you would like to add with respect to those comments?

Mr. Bisignano (01:05:00):

I've run a quality control and efficiency program in companies my whole life. I've always been overseen by the OCC and the Fed and control really matters a lot, so I've always considered myself an efficiency expert, but also a quality expert. If you look at my rankings, when I took over the mortgage company in J.D. Power, we went from the lowest performing to the highest performing. So my comments really mean that I'm happy to work with anybody who can help us and I believe that I'm fundamentally about efficiency myself.

Senator Mike Crapo (01:05:38):

Thank you. Senator Wyden.

MR. WYDEN (01:05:42):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first question for the nominee is in the last two months, DOGE has been rampaging through Social Security and I need to know first if you're responsible for some of this current chaos. So my first question is between the time you were nominated and today, were you involved in discussions about DOGE or any of the operations, personnel, or management decisions with those working at Social Security?

Mr. Bisignano (01:06:15):

No, sir.

MR. WYDEN (01:06:17):

So that sounds like a reassuring response, but unfortunately it's not true. Mr. Chairman, I have a statement from a senior official who worked at Social Security and recently left the agency and the nominee told my staff, yours, and me in my office that the nominee wasn't involved with any agency operations, personnel and management decisions. And the whistleblower statement says that the nominee insisted on personally approving several key DOGE hires at the agency, among other things and getting frequent briefings. So Mr. Chairman, the first thing I'd like to do is put into the record the statement from this very high level official at Social Security, a whistleblower

Senator Mike Crapo (01:07:19):

Without objection.

MR. WYDEN (01:07:20):

So according to the whistleblower, you personally intervened to get key DOGE officials installed at the agency who have mastermind this shipwreck that we're dealing today. Did you talk to anyone at Social Security about these changes?

Mr. Bisignano (01:07:40):

I have never talked to Mr. Dudek. I have talked to Mike Russo and I've said that to your staff when they asked me. I know Mike Russo, he was the CIO of Shift4 and he was the CIO at Oracle for Mark Hurd and I know him for 20 years. I don't know him as a DOGE person, I know him as a CIO.

MR. WYDEN (01:08:09):

So with respect to anyone else, did you talk to any of these officials who were involved in operations? Because the whistleblower said you personally intervened to get DOGE officials installed, and I understand there's one person who got basically approved in the middle of the night as a result of your insistence. Are you saying that the whistleblower is not telling the truth to the Senate Finance Committee? Because there are a number of very influential officials who have indicated that they will support the position of the whistleblower.

Mr. Bisignano (01:08:50):

I was not involved in onboarding anybody in the middle of the night.

MR. WYDEN (01:08:56):

Well, we've heard some very disturbing comments with respect to some of the officials and I think we've got to get to the bottom of it. Let me ask you about the role of ushering in key DOGE officials who've been working through agency databases and feasting on the personal information of the American people, their health records, their bank account data, their tax data. DOGE recklessness there has set off what could be the largest identity theft crisis in history. A federal judge ordered SSA to stop providing DOGE access. In her ruling, the judge said, and I quote here, "DOGE's bogus reasoning akin to a phishing expedition in search of a fraud epidemic based on little more than suspicion." So my question to you here is if you're confirmed, will you lock DOGE out of Social Security databases and stop them from exposing millions of Americans who could be damaged?

Mr. Bisignano (01:09:59):

Sir, I've spent my career protecting PII in the largest institutions. I think it's of the utmost importance for PII to be protected. And yes, I will ensure it's protected.

MR. WYDEN (01:10:11):

So will you lock DOGE out? It's a very specific yes or no question. Will you lock DOGE out of Social Security databases?

Mr. Bisignano (01:10:21):

I'm going to do whatever's required to protect the information that is private information. So I don't know what lock DOGE out means, but there's way more than DOGE that can't have access to that information, sir.

MR. WYDEN (01:10:36):

I would like that in writing, that you will lock DOGE out of the Social Security databases. Will you furnish that in writing?

Mr. Bisignano (01:10:44):

I don't know what lock DOGE out of the Social Security.

MR. WYDEN (01:10:48):

Stop them. It's got a pretty simple concept. When you lock somebody out, you stop them.

Mr. Bisignano (01:10:52):

There's lots of databases, but PII will not be exposed.

MR. WYDEN (01:10:55):

Okay. Mr. Chairman, I would like you and I and the committee to follow up on what this whistleblower has told us because your staff met with them, my staff met with them, I met with them, and I don't believe that this whistleblower would make this up. This whistleblower has said that this is a nominee who will be bad for the agency and has cited specifics. And this nominee says that the whistleblower is wrong. And I think this whistleblower throughout their career has been somebody who's told the truth and I think we better get to the bottom of it. And they told your staff the same thing they told mine, that this nominee had nothing to do with operations and certainly some very experienced individuals feel that that was not true.

Senator Mike Crapo (01:11:45):

Thank you. Senator Whitehouse.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (01:11:48):

Thanks very much. Welcome Mr. Bisignano. Two quick questions. One, I'm concerned on behalf of constituents with Social Security disability, that there are cliffs in the benefit system that create very peculiar behavior around the edge of the cliff. I think we should engage in bipartisan cliff smoothing. Is that something that you would work with us on?

Mr. Bisignano (01:12:12):

I'm prepared to research it if I'm fortunate enough to be confirmed as soon as I get in there.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (01:12:18):

And if you are confirmed,-

Mr. Bisignano (01:12:19):

And report back to you, sir.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (01:12:21):

Okay, thank you. If you are confirmed, will you check and make sure that the Musk infiltration of Social Security databases has not damaged those databases or left back doors for private actors to get back into to access Social Security's data system?

Mr. Bisignano (01:12:38):

There will be a total review. Yes.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (01:12:40):

Thank you. So here's where I think we are. I think there's a bit of a plot afoot here. Step one is to lie about not intending to damage Social Security and to protect Social Security benefits. The president is a profligate liar. Russia didn't invade Ukraine. The election was rigged and stolen from me. I'm not a criminal. DOJ was weaponized. Climate change is a hoax. You just can't stop the lies and I think I'm not going to attack Social Security is a lie. So that's step one, lie about it. Step two is discredit Social Security. Trump and Musk have been lying loudly about imaginary Social Security fraud, which seems to me to be an effort to lower public confidence in the program. They falsely called it a Ponzi scheme. Well, if those things aren't true, why are they saying that? What is the motive behind those lies? I think the motive is to discredit the system.

(01:13:49)
Then you send in your Musk characters and you start them messing around in the operations of Social Security to damage it. And as we were sitting here at Mr. Bisignano, here comes the breaking news from The Washington Post. Headline, Social Security is Breaking Down Amid Long Waits, Waves of Calls and Web Crashes. A flood of cuts led by Elon Musk has sent the agency into a meltdown as a new commissioner, you prepares to take charge. So you also have the billionaire Commerce Secretary saying that an interruption of benefits would be a good way to sniff out fraud because the only people who'd complain when their benefits were interrupted would be the fraudsters, which is idiotic frankly. But it is part of this campaign to disrupt as well as discredit Social Security so that there is then an interruption of benefits.

(01:14:52)
Once there's an interruption of benefits, then Trump can declare an emergency in Social Security and send in the tech bros and the private equity folks, some of whom are already messing around in Social Security to say, "oh, to save Social Security, we have to take it over." We got to have the tech bros and the private equity people take over Social Security and then that's it. The longstanding Republican goal of getting rid of Social Security as a public program is achieved and under the pretense that they've saved it, broken it in order to save it. Will you, let's just say that that turns out to be the set of facts, that you determined to be the accurate case once you get over there. Will you participate in or defend against that scheme?

Mr. Bisignano (01:15:47):

Well, I think my job as a commissioner is to ensure that every beneficiary receives their payments on time, that disability claims are processed in the manner they should be. So my first actions are going to be to get organized around delivering the services and I've only been given one order, which is to run the agency in the right fashion by the president.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (01:16:16):

And what role will privatizing Social Security, bringing in private equity and tech people and giving Elon Musk and his little crowd a role have in all of that?

Mr. Bisignano (01:16:31):

I've never thought about privatizing. It's not a word that anybody's ever talked to me about. And I don't see this institution as anything other than a government agency that gets run for the benefit of the American public.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (01:16:45):

Let's hope that that is the way this ends. Thank you.

Mr. Bisignano (01:16:48):

You'll have my guarantee I'll make it end that way.

Senator Mike Crapo (01:16:53):

Thank you. Senator Cassidy.

Senator Cassidy (01:16:55):

Good to see you, sir.

Mr. Bisignano (01:16:56):

Good to see.

Senator Cassidy (01:16:57):

Good to meet your family in New Orleans at the Super Bowl.

Mr. Bisignano (01:16:59):

Thank you.

Senator Cassidy (01:17:01):

I was struck when I asked okay what, I forget how much Social Security puts out per day and I asked, "You want to take that on?" And you said, "I handle five times that much per day right now." And I just say, I was struck immediately how like, oh yeah, this is what I do and I do it in a way which improves service. And then you pointed where we were eating. This is one of my machines. By the way, it took my money very quickly for the pizza that I bought. So just to thank you for offering that and bringing your kind of incredible skillset to this issue.

Mr. Bisignano (01:17:36):

Thank you, sir.

Senator Cassidy (01:17:37):

Part of it we talked about was public facing service and particularly among older people who sometimes have a difficult time getting to an office and they rely upon the phone because frankly they're home bound. How will you manage that? How will you continue to provide services to those folks who are home bound, making sure that they can still access, make changes as necessary even if they have a difficult time coming in physically?

Mr. Bisignano (01:18:11):

Yeah. Today, Social Security according to public information gets 80 million phone calls a year. And in the organization I currently run, we do 400 million phone calls a year. I see the phone as a mandatory way for people to communicate. I see phone technology as an opportunity, but at some point people want to talk to a live agent also. So we have to provide that. I think it's mandatory. I think it's part of meeting beneficiaries where they want to get met, whether it's in a field office, whether it's on the web, or whether it's on the phone. And I think it's ripe for enhancement always, but obviously ultimately people like sometimes to get reassurance from a person that they're going to get the benefits they require.

Senator Cassidy (01:19:05):

Now there's chronic wait times, I'm told, chronic wait times on the 1-800 number. So much so that people sometimes give up and there's evidence it's improved, but it's still not where you would have it in the private sector.

Mr. Bisignano (01:19:19):

My belief is that if you look at the Social Security website and you look at the statistics, taking 20 plus minutes to answer the phone is not really acceptable. And that's the reason why only 46% of the phone calls get answered because people get discouraged and hang up.

Senator Cassidy (01:19:38):

Using your experience. How could that be improved? Just more people answering,-

Mr. Bisignano (01:19:44):

I think we could get that to under a minute. I think we could get that to under a minute. I think we can also help the people within the organization answer questions better by bringing artificial intelligence to them to prompt them with the information they need. It enhances their jobs. As I said before, Social Security ranks at the low end of employees sat in our government system today. But I believe technology is a great enabler. We do not need to rewrite every system within Social Security. We do not have to spend lots of money on many of these things. We could do them with basic technology that's out there.

Senator Cassidy (01:20:27):

That was one of the things that reassured me. All these things that seem to be insurmountable in the Social Security Administration, you would like done it. And again, thank you for bringing that expertise to us. One thing that I know is an issue is sometimes beneficiaries are overpaid and then they're contacted later to recoup the money. Now it's one thing for somebody who's well off to pay back and it's another thing for someone who basically lives on cashflow and then you're asked to repay that which has been spent. Any thoughts about that? How do we stop one, the over payments and then once it's detected, how are we fair to the people who have been overpaid taking into account their ability to repay?

Mr. Bisignano (01:21:15):

Thank you. I think there's two things there. One is, as I like to say, the Inspector General report produces a 1% error rate. I think that's a much way too high. I think it should be decimal points to the right, probably five decimal points. That will eliminate a lot of the over payments. And then at the end of the day, we need to evaluate the ability to pay back and work it out. I know there was one way to do it. We've implemented another. I'm going to make sure that we recover all the money we should recover. But on the other hand, we have to be humans in the process too.

Senator Cassidy (01:22:00):

I have a couple of questions I'll do for the record. Thank you very much for bringing your private expertise to benefit the public. Thank you.

Mr. Bisignano (01:22:07):

Thank you.

Senator Mike Crapo (01:22:08):

Thank you. Senator Lankford.

Senator Lankford (01:22:10):

Chairman, thank you. Thank you for stepping into this role. Stepping in with the expertise and the experience that you have and the background. What you've done on the technical sides for so many different people, quite frankly is a real asset to Social Security to be able to step in. This is a payment system at its core. That's something that you've specialized in for a long time. Grateful that you've stepped out of the private sector into the public sector to be able to do this in this season on it.

(01:22:37)
So let me just run several things past you, but I did want to be able to raise one thing that has been in process for a while. My state is one of the few states that has not been able to do the my Social Security portal based on just the ID portion of that. That has been some of the Social Security and some of the career folks I've worked on for a long time. That has finally been checked. And I've been grateful to a lot of the career folks that have been engaged in Social Security for a while to be able to work with my state to be able to get that. That's going to help a lot of the customer service issues in my state in particular on this.

(01:23:10)
But as Senator Cassidy was just raising on this as well, the call times, the response time, getting an appointment. It may be surprising to some people that there are a few 85-year olds that aren't tech-savvy, that they don't like using a computer. They want to actually talk to a person. And the challenge is still how do they get in to be able to visit with somebody, get an appointment, number one, get a time and then get it done in a timely manner. So I know we're working a lot on the technology, that's a good thing for a lot of folks. Working on the phone call side of it. What is your plan on the face-to-face portion of Social Security services as well?

Mr. Bisignano (01:23:44):

I think we have to meet beneficiaries where they want to be. And I think that includes field offices, it includes the phone, it includes technology on the phone, and then it includes a live agent if they want to talk to somebody. And obviously the web is a place that we can also interact, but I think it's about a multichannel system and giving the ability to use the channel that one wants to use in order to accomplish the chore they want to get done with us.

Senator Lankford (01:24:17):

That'd be helpful. One of the things that you and I have talked about already in my office and thank you for stopping by so we can get a chance have a longer conversation is about the disability determination. That process can be two to three years long. There's a lot of aspects of it that end up taking a very long time to just get an answer on it. The reconsideration process is certainly broken in the process and takes a tremendous amount of time on just the reconsideration for something they already know to be able to go through the same hoop again. There are a lot of challenges that are in this process.

(01:24:48)
As you walk into this, I'm not going to ask you how you're going to fix it because you're walking in and got to look at it to see what can be done. I would raise to this as an issue. You said you were already aware of some of those issues as well. How do you begin the process of trying to reform the disability review so that disabled individuals don't have to wait three years to actually get into that process and people that are not qualified can get an answer faster?

Mr. Bisignano (01:25:13):

Yes. First of all, thank you for the time in your office and you enlightened me a lot in your dialogue with me around this process. And my first objective would be to process engineer it from front to back, understand really what is taking what amount of time. We also talked, you were kind of to talk to me about the jobs and the fact that person who maybe 30 years ago was determined to be disabled and wasn't highly motivated by the system to be able to work today, we could do something different. So one of the first things I'm going to look at when I get there is all of those elements that we talked about in your office. And I'm positive when you analyze something from front to back and you think about the age of today versus 30 years ago, that we could get a lot better answer for Americans.

Senator Lankford (01:26:09):

Yeah, we can. And there are folks that have great needs that qualify for disability, that Congress has actually said, hey, American people, we're going to stand alongside of them. That it takes years to be able to get through that process. And there are others that are trying to game the system that need an answer faster to say, hey, you are able to work and we want you to be able to do that. We are Americans. It's what we do. Two areas that we talked about briefly, and I'll just bring them up briefly to you. The death master file. We've got about 915,000 people still listed in a bit of limbo on that, that still need clarification on. That's from the Inspector General's report from 2024.

(01:26:48)
And we have on the opposite side of that, multiple people using the exact same social security number to apply for a job that then show up just as Social Security number in the process on it. So we've got some numbers being used multiple times. We've got 915,000 in the death master file that just need to be clarified, are they alive or not in the process. So that's again a technology piece that we're going to count on you to be able to go chase down, to be able to figure out how to be able to clearly identify that and make decisions, get it back out. So appreciate your time and your leadership and for your willingness to step in this role.

Mr. Bisignano (01:27:22):

Thank you sir.

Senator Mike Crapo (01:27:23):

Senator Hassan.

Senator Hassan (01:27:25):

Thank you Mr. Chair and ranking member Wyden. Good morning Mr. Bisignano. It was very nice to visit with you in our office and congratulations to you and your family for your nomination. Before turning to Social Security issues, I want to ask you a simple question that I'm asking every nominee now related to recent events. If directed by the President to take an action that would break the law, would you follow the law or follow the President's directive?

Mr. Bisignano (01:27:53):

Well, I've followed the law, but I can't ever imagine the President asking that.

Senator Hassan (01:28:00):

Well, I'm glad you will follow the law. I challenge the notion that you can't imagine this president instructing somebody to break the law. I won't go through the litany, but there are plenty of examples of it since he took office. Now I want to move on to Social Security. Elon Musk and President Trump have set their sights on cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for corporate special interests and billionaires. Elon Musk has referred to Social Security as a, " Ponzi scheme." That's in quotes, and he recently called for cutting up to $700 billion from Social Security and Medicare. That could mean cutting one-third of these programs.

(01:28:42)
Social Security operates as you know on simple math. To achieve a one-third cut, you'd either have to take away benefits for one-third of the people currently receiving them or cut the payments that they're getting by one-third. So Mr. Bisignano, which is it? Are you going to throw one-third of the people off of the program or cut their benefits by a third?

Mr. Bisignano (01:29:03):

Neither.

Senator Hassan (01:29:06):

That's good to hear. So if the President and the Congress decide to cut these benefits, you're going to stand up for the beneficiaries?

Mr. Bisignano (01:29:15):

Well, if Congress decides, I mean ultimately these decisions get done in the Senate Finance Committee. It's a collaboration. It's not the commissioner's job to make that decision.

Senator Hassan (01:29:25):

So do you oppose cutting one-third of Social Security benefits?

Mr. Bisignano (01:29:30):

I think the President has made it very clear that he has no objective and he's made it very clear to cut any benefits from Social Security.

Senator Hassan (01:29:42):

Yet he has Elon Musk who until he was told he couldn't by a court, running rampant through Social Security and he's laying off staff and making it much more difficult for people to get benefits. That's inconsistent with the President's pledge. If you are confirmed, will you commit to stand up to Elon Musk and DOGE and stop them from cutting one-third of Social Security benefits, which Musk has already said he wants to do?

Mr. Bisignano (01:30:11):

Well, I've worked for Tony Tersiano, I've worked for Jamie Dimon, I've worked for Henry Kravis, I've worked for Sandy Weill, I've worked with them. I have the ability to lead the agency in the manner that this Senate Finance Committee wants me to do that. And I don't know of any thought that I have about cutting one-third of the benefits of Americans or even entertaining anything of that sort.

Senator Hassan (01:30:43):

Well, I appreciate that. I think I will echo the ranking member's request that we get a commitment from you, that you will keep DOGE out of Social Security because one of the things we're seeing since this administration took over is steps that are making it harder and harder for people to apply for benefits, get benefits, and really working to slow things down, which is one way of course of slowing benefits, slowing benefit payments, and reducing costs at the expense of beneficiaries. Let me turn to a New Hampshire issue. One in five Granite Staters receive Social Security benefits that they paid into for their entire lives. Earlier this month at the direction of Elon Musk and DOGE, the administration announced plans to close 47 Social Security offices, including the one in Littleton, New Hampshire.

(01:31:36)
Shortly thereafter, the Social Security Administration announced plans that would force more applicants and beneficiaries to go in person to offices while at the same time laying off staff who work in those remaining offices. If the Littleton office is closed, North Country seniors would be forced to travel nearly 100 miles to the next closest New Hampshire field office. If confirmed, will you commit to keeping the Littleton Social Security Office open or will you do what Elon Musk commands you to do on this issue?

Mr. Bisignano (01:32:09):

I'm going to be running the agency and I report to the president running the agency. So I just want to be very clear on that. I will evaluate the whole situation and I'll report back to you.

Senator Hassan (01:32:23):

And Mr. Chair, I'd like with unanimous consent to offer into the record this archived copy of the listing by DOGE that includes the Littleton, New Hampshire Social Security Office as one that they would like to close.

Senator Mike Crapo (01:32:38):

Without objection.

Senator Hassan (01:32:40):

Thank you. And last thing for the, I will submit this for the record, but I do want to note that Commerce Secretary Lutnick has suggested that seniors wouldn't mind if the Social Security Administration didn't send out benefits one month and that only fraudsters would complain. And I will ask the nominee to reflect on how long he would be okay delaying Social Security checks to seniors. Thank you.

Senator Mike Crapo (01:33:07):

Thank you. Senator Cortez Masto.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:33:09):

Thank you Mr. Chair. Mr. Bisignano, thank you so much,-

Mr. Bisignano (01:33:15):

Thank you for having me.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:33:16):

For meeting with me. I appreciate it. Welcome. Congratulations on your nomination. Welcome to your family. Let me just get a couple of questions out of the way and hopefully we just have this candid conversation and we carry it through like we did in my office. Recently in an interview with Joe Rogan on February 28th, Elon Musk called Social Security, the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time. Do you believe that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme?

Mr. Bisignano (01:33:42):

I believe it's a promise to pay. It's an 89-year institution so far. It will continue.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:33:50):

Yes or no? Do you think it's a Ponzi scheme?

Mr. Bisignano (01:33:52):

It's a promise to pay.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:33:56):

In a podcast appearance. Last week, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested that only fraudsters would complain about missing a Social Security check and that most people wouldn't mind if the government simply skipped a payment. Do you agree with Secretary Lutnick, that only fraudsters complain when the government fails to send Social Security checks?

Mr. Bisignano (01:34:25):

I don't think anyone would appreciate not getting their Social Security check on time.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:34:29):

I'm sorry, say that again.

Mr. Bisignano (01:34:29):

I said, I don't think anyone would appreciate not getting their Social Security check on time.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:34:30):

So you would agree they're not fraudsters.

Mr. Bisignano (01:34:35):

I'm answering what you asked. Do I think,-

Senator Cortez Masto (01:34:39):

Well, that's the question is, his implication is if you're questioning whether you got your check or not, you're probably a fraudster. Would you agree with that?

Mr. Bisignano (01:34:47):

It'd be hard to get to that conclusion.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:34:49):

Pardon me?

Mr. Bisignano (01:34:50):

It'd be hard to get to that conclusion.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:34:52):

Okay. Now let me ask you this as well. The current Social Security Administrator briefly ended a contract that had allowed parents of newborn babies in Maine to sign their children up for Social Security number at the hospital. Instead, he required them to do so in person at an office. The current administrator, according to a New York Times article, said he had ordered the move after watching Governor Janet Mills clash with Mr. Trump at the White House. He then quickly reversed that decision, but said he did it because he felt that the governor of Maine was not being real cordial to the president. Do you think social security should be used as a political weapon against individuals in the future?

Mr. Bisignano (01:35:40):

As I said in my opening comments, it's the most bipartisan thing we have. I believe its job is to deliver for the American population.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:35:49):

I agree. But do you think it should be used as a political weapon at the whim of somebody who wants to show fealty to the President?

Mr. Bisignano (01:35:57):

I don't think it should be.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:35:59):

Good. That's the right

Senator Cortez Masto (01:36:00):

Right answer. It should not be because everything you've said up until now has agreed that we should get the benefits out to individuals, that we should ensure that our focus is making those that need this disability benefits or who worked hard their entire lives, they're entitled to these benefits really get them. So I appreciate that comment.

(01:36:21)
Let me also jump back to a couple of questions. Let me jump to this, more than 570,000 Nevadans rely on Social Security after paying into it for decades, yet they face long wait times and inaccessible offices, problems that have only worsened under the so-called efficiency measures introduced by DOGE. DOGE has cut staff, they've closed field offices and they've shifted services online. I'm hopeful that you are going to address this issue and as you think about moving into this office, what are you going to do based on all of the complaints that we are hearing now, there are more so than before this administration came into office? How do you expect to in the first a hundred days address these issues?

Mr. Bisignano (01:37:11):

I'm a battle tested executive. In the mortgage crisis when I was asked to come in and work shoulder to shoulder with the government, we figured out how to clean up a pretty big mess.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:37:25):

And so would you reverse some of the DOGE decisions if you felt that they were inappropriate and they weren't getting to the beneficiaries the information, the benefits they need.

Mr. Bisignano (01:37:35):

Any decision I thought was inappropriate would be re-looked at. All issues-

Senator Cortez Masto (01:37:40):

And you'd be willing to reverse it if you felt it was appropriate.

Mr. Bisignano (01:37:41):

I'm sorry.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:37:41):

And you would be willing to reverse it if you felt it was appropriate?

Mr. Bisignano (01:37:45):

If something was inappropriate, it would be changed.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:37:48):

Thank you. And then finally, let me ask you this. There's a lot of concern and rightfully so about individuals who don't even work in the administration. They are actually rifling through the personal information of Americans, and I am hopeful that you are going to guard that personal information for anybody who has provided it to Social Security Administration. Are you willing to protect their private information?

Mr. Bisignano (01:38:12):

I've done it my whole career.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:38:15):

That's yes?

Mr. Bisignano (01:38:16):

I've done it my whole career. That would be yes.

Senator Cortez Masto (01:38:18):

Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman (01:38:21):

Thank you. Senator Marshall.

Senator Marshall (01:38:23):

Well, thank you Mr. Chairman and welcome Mr. Bisignano. Welcome. We appreciate you answering the call that this is a job you don't need. This is a job that you don't covet, but instead you're one of the patriots that's stepping forward to help save this nation.

(01:38:42)
We heard some fearmongering this morning and I just want to reassure Americans that Republicans are the party that wants to save Social Security, that we want to ensure that the folks that have paid into Social Security their whole lives, who've earned these benefits get the money that they were promised. And I also want to remind Americans that we're the party that wants to stop the taxing of Social Security benefits as well. We want Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money and not have to pay a tax on this benefit that they paid into their whole lives.

(01:39:18)
The Social Security Administration had probably 10 billion dollars of improper payments in 2023. I think it's a lot more than that. Can you explain how you use your past experience in payments processing to bring down these improper payments?

Mr. Bisignano (01:39:34):

I think my past experiences beyond payment processing, but I think in this case it's good to talk about in a broader sense. I think every error requires root cause analysis. Why did it happen? There are no one-offs. My lifetime of experience shows there's pattern recognition and the fact that we produced an inspector general report that talks about a 1% error rate, that is completely too high for the function we're talking about.

Senator Marshall (01:40:11):

In your past experience, what was your error rate?

Mr. Bisignano (01:40:13):

Five decimals to the right. Five decimal points to the right. So point at 0.00001.

Senator Marshall (01:40:20):

Got it. Okay.

Mr. Bisignano (01:40:21):

And that's what the target would be. And if you think about that type of error rate running through the agency, it creates the opportunity for more problems than we need. Ultimately, we're talking about quality of service to our beneficiaries. So I think it's about root cause analysis. I think it's about rigor. I know that there's lots of stats that are produced, but when I go on and look at the stats, they're not at the level that you all should accept or that I will accept or that the American public should accept.

Senator Marshall (01:40:57):

Certainly one way of saving Social Security is by eliminating or decreasing these improper payments. I don't think anyone could argue against that.

(01:41:05)
Let's talk about customer experience a little bit more. How will you use your background to improve processing times and customer service?

Mr. Bisignano (01:41:12):

I think many of this is about what I call process engineering. Understanding where we are creating backlogs. Obviously with the amount of time it's taking, I don't know if our standards are appropriate yet. We have a six-month standard on disability, it takes much longer. A lot of things we need to go analyze them, but I don't believe that this is going to take us years. I think there's many things we'll solve in year one, and that would be my expectation. I bring a sense of urgency to, and I want the people in the agency to feel like they're winning. I want them to feel like they're winning.

Senator Marshall (01:41:57):

Let's talk about Americans personally identifiable information. All of us from credit cards to banks, I mean, even this week I got another alert from health insurance that our data has been violated. What's your experience been like in the private world to protect people's identifiable information and how can you improve and protect that? Let me ask you, is this a priority for you?

Mr. Bisignano (01:42:22):

It's job one. In this job, it's job one, and if you run a financial institution, it's job one. And if you're run Fiserv, it's job one. You must have the trust and that's something, PII, as you would call it, needs the highest level of scrutiny and protection, and we need to understand who can access what information and ensure that that information's anonymized so they're not getting data that they could use in a bad way.

Senator Marshall (01:42:57):

My last question. Let's talk about the IT systems that you used, you've used in the past. What can you do from an IT standpoint to improve Social Security's efficiency and improve customer experience?

Mr. Bisignano (01:43:08):

Well, I think technology is a great enabler. You don't have to throw a system out. You have to figure out how to make it work better. You have to understand how to make yourself more efficient. I think one of the greatest efficiency opportunities we have is using artificial intelligence. That doesn't mean we use it for answering the phone. It means we use it to learn how to do our work better. I don't think these are monumental economic spends. I think we could do them within the plan.

Senator Marshall (01:43:39):

Thank you Mr. Bisignano, you're hired. Thanks.

Mr. Bisignano (01:43:42):

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Chairman (01:43:43):

Senator Johnson.

Senator Johnson (01:43:44):

Johnson. Thank you Mr. Chairman. First of all, Mr. Bisignano, thank you for your willingness to serve.

(01:43:49)
I have to compliment President Trump and his team. I can't imagine them finding a more qualified individual for this position. I'm not kidding. I think it's pretty remarkable. First of all, did President Trump or anybody on his team in interviewing you and deciding to make this nomination, did any of them ever talk about cutting benefits for Social Security?

Mr. Bisignano (01:44:13):

No. As a matter of fact, always talked about it's something we wouldn't do.

Senator Johnson (01:44:18):

It's doing everything we can to protect-

Mr. Bisignano (01:44:20):

Yes.

Senator Johnson (01:44:21):

Social Security, correct?

Mr. Bisignano (01:44:22):

Yes.

Senator Johnson (01:44:25):

You mentioned in previous answer to question here that the 1% error rate is too high. I want you to compare the IT systems, the processing, the payment processing that you've done at Fiserv and other companies to Social Security. Just give the committee some sense of your depth of experience in dealing with these things versus Social Security.

Mr. Bisignano (01:44:49):

Well, we have 13,000 software engineers today at Fiserv. I like to believe we're fundamentally a tech company that provides payments, a hundred percent of the American households. A lot I've heard is about the old Cobalt system at Social Security. I actually believe that's the system we have and we know how to build around it.

Senator Johnson (01:45:21):

By the way, you have that at Fiserv?

Mr. Bisignano (01:45:23):

It's all over the world.

Senator Johnson (01:45:26):

So you'll be able to adapt from that?

Mr. Bisignano (01:45:27):

Yeah, it could be dealt with. It's not the problem. I think one of the things I'd say is there's no substitute for experience. I believe that, and I think I'm the first commissioner that's actually been a technologist and operator, understands payments, has run call centers, has done settlements, understood how to deal in crises, whether it was 9/11 or whether it was '08 or the mortgage crisis. So I come with a depth of experience in how to make systems work for the people inside the agency and for our users.

Senator Johnson (01:46:09):

So as you're aware, I'm a counselor. I like numbers. I mean, do you have off the top of your head just the annual number of payments, for example, Fiserv makes to virtually every household in America versus Social Security?

Mr. Bisignano (01:46:20):

We do 250 million payments a day for two and a half trillion dollars versus 74 million a month on Social Security.

Senator Johnson (01:46:31):

So a lot more?

Mr. Bisignano (01:46:33):

Yes, sir.

Senator Johnson (01:46:37):

A lot more. So talk about that 1% error rate. What is the error rate within Fiserv or other company-

Mr. Bisignano (01:46:39):

I think you think about it five decimal points to the right. I think about it five decimal points to the right, and we're always trying to strive to get that better. I think about answering the phone in less than a minute. We do it in 22 minutes right now at Social Security.

Senator Johnson (01:46:56):

Again, I know you're not commissioner, so you don't necessarily have this answer. What do you think drives the much higher error rate in Social Security? I mean, is it the complexity of the tax code? Is it just inefficiency of the system? What?

Mr. Bisignano (01:47:08):

I think it's that we accept it.

Senator Johnson (01:47:13):

Pardon?

Mr. Bisignano (01:47:14):

I think we've accepted it.

Senator Johnson (01:47:15):

Oh, okay. Okay. So something you think you can with your experience you can fix?

Mr. Bisignano (01:47:21):

Yes, sir.

Senator Johnson (01:47:23):

I do want, I don't know if anybody else has done this, I hate to open up the can of worms again, but do you have any idea what Senator Wyden and Senator Whitehouse were talking about in terms of these whistleblowers? Do you want to take an opportunity to just address what allegations they were throwing your way?

Mr. Bisignano (01:47:43):

I don't really. I don't know about the whistleblowers. I know that I brought, Mike Russo sent me a note and he came in as the CIO. I know Mike Russo for a long time, and that's really kind of it.

Senator Johnson (01:48:02):

So obviously the folks on the other side of the aisle have a real problem in trying to make government more efficient and trying to root out waste fraud abuse. Again, I'm a huge supporter of what Elon Musk and his DOGE group are doing. I don't understand why they're not, quite honestly. So again, I think somebody like Elon Musk, somebody like yourself, these are accomplished individuals that have a depth of experience and they're asking questions of government that have never been asked before. Here in Congress had we asked those, we are not given access to this information. So you have to be inside the administration to actually ask these questions, get the answers, but you have a response.

Mr. Bisignano (01:48:42):

Well, I think first of all, it's a multi-dimensional issue. We need to deliver service, we need to deliver quality, we need to deliver control, and we need to deliver efficiency. And if you're battle-tested, I believe I'm battle-tested, you know how to do all of those. And I view DOGE as an input. The president's been very clear the agency heads are in charge of the agency.

Senator Johnson (01:49:10):

Well, again, I can't imagine somebody more qualified for this position.

Mr. Bisignano (01:49:15):

You're kind.

Senator Johnson (01:49:16):

Again, you got my support and again, thanks for your willingness to serve. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman (01:49:19):

Thank you. Senator Daines.

Senator Daines (01:49:23):

Mr. Chairman, thank you. Congratulations your nomination, your willingness to serve. Since the Social Security Administration was first established as an independent agency, the importance of the public trust has always been integral to that core mission.

(01:49:37)
I want to just cut to the chase though on customer service for a moment if I might. Like Senator Johnson, I spent most of my career in the private sector. Customer service is paramount. In fact, after I left Procter & Gamble, I went to work for a customer experience CRM solution. We worked with call centers to make sure the customer was getting a great experience.

(01:49:59)
And so as we prepared for this hearing yesterday, I asked my team, let's just see what it's like to call the Social Security Administration. So we went online and there's a nice little box here that says, we are here to help. Now I realize you're going to be coming in here to fix some of the problems. This is not happening on your watch, but I want to make you aware of the customer experience my staff member experienced when they called the 800 number we are here to help.

(01:50:28)
So to recant what happened here, first of all, they were disconnected twice when they got on the phone. In fact, I'm going to read the, I just want to get the text message. Here it is. Called the SSA number three times, disconnected twice after two minutes, and this is the published, we are here to help 800 number. Finally got through to wait to speak to a representative. And here's what my staff member encountered for an hour.

(01:51:15)
I mean they could have at least had a Olivia Newton John or some mediocre seventies music, but for an hour this repeated over and over again and then they were disconnected. You can't make this up. I'd encourage anybody try calling the Social Security 1-800 number. It's 1-800-772-1213. And in fact it says if you call in the morning, the wait times are usually shorter. Later in the week, a little longer. Later in the month, a little longer. It says, our automated telephone servers are available 24 hours a day. Disconnected three times, and the third time after waiting an hour listening to these really D grade elevator music.

(01:51:57)
So we've got a lot of work to do to serve the taxpayers in this country and improve their customer experience that just want to have some help. And I realize this isn't happening on your watch, but let me just put one of your to-do's is maybe try calling at 1-800 number and see what it's like from your own experience. This was just literally yesterday.

(01:52:17)
As you begin looking at areas for innovation and improvements in the delivery of the vital services and benefits, will you commit to me and to my office to ensure that Montanans have access to Social Security, particularly for Montanans who live in rural areas?

Mr. Bisignano (01:52:38):

My belief is first of all, thank you for talking about the phone service because although we publish a 22 minute wait time, that's an average wait time. And I think the better way to measure it over the long haul is what percentage calls get answered within 30 seconds, right? Because we have percents of calls that are taking an hour and a half and only half the callers get through.

(01:53:14)
So I bring that up because I have a multi-channel strategy I think about, which is to meet beneficiaries where they want to be. If they want to come to a field office, if they want to do it over the phone or if they want to do it over the web. But all three of those channels have to execute well. They have to execute well. So it's not enough to just have them. We have to be able to also use all the technology available to us today to do a great job for our beneficiaries. So you have my commitment to work my tail off on all of it.

Senator Daines (01:53:54):

Thank you. One of the challenges we face oftentimes when they post-customer service hours, particularly with call centers, is the call centers are open when many people are not available because they're at work. And then when they are available, the call center's closed. And so you just described there the multi-channel type approach, whether it's a web experience, getting information directly from the internet, whether it's a call, whether it's an email, to really lock in on service levels that we can make sure we're providing to our customers, the taxpayers of this country and those beneficiaries have been paying in that system their entire life. They deserve a lot better. And I hope you will bring much needed change to the Social Security Administration with your leadership. Thank you.

Mr. Bisignano (01:54:47):

Thank you sir.

Mr. Chairman (01:54:48):

Thank you. Senator Sanders.

Senator Sanders (01:54:49):

Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Welcome Mr. Bisignano. Mr. Bisignano, on your opening remarks, you mentioned that last year the Inspector General reported that the error rate in Social Security was less than 1% and it was an error rate that you wanted to improve upon. Am I right?

Mr. Bisignano (01:55:09):

Yes.

Senator Sanders (01:55:10):

Okay. But in the State of the Union Address listened to by millions and millions of Americans, President Trump suggested that quote, millions and millions, end of quote, of Social Security checks are going out to people who are between the ages of 140 and 360 years old. Millions and millions of checks. You've just acknowledged what is true is that the error rate in Social Security is less than 1%, 99 point whatever of the people who get the checks paid into the system and deserve those checks. So what I want to ask you is do you think that President Trump was just expressing an outrageous lie, which I happen to believe, trying to undermine Social Security? Or was he just grossly uninformed about the reality?

Mr. Bisignano (01:56:06):

I think what the president was representing, which further was represented again and proven to be accurate, is that there were millions of Social Security records that did not have people deceased.

Senator Sanders (01:56:27):

Let's not play with words. What you have just acknowledged is that in 2024, the Social Security Administration paid out over 99 point whatever percent of people eligible. The error rate was less than one percent. Millions and millions and millions of people, 200 or 300 years of age did not get checks. Is that true?

Mr. Bisignano (01:56:57):

What I represented was that a 1% error rate in a mission critical function like Social Security is way too high.

Senator Sanders (01:57:09):

I agree. I agree with you.

Mr. Bisignano (01:57:10):

And that-

Senator Sanders (01:57:11):

Excuse me, I don't have much time. Sorry.

Mr. Bisignano (01:57:13):

Sorry.

Senator Sanders (01:57:14):

President said, millions and millions of people. You are saying, and you're right, less than 1%. You want to improve it. You're right, let's do it. President was lying and what he was trying to do was undermine the foundations of Social Security by saying the system is out of control.

(01:57:29)
All right, my next question is, Senator Daines made a good point. You call up Social Security today, it's a disaster. Why if right now it is hard for people to get through in Vermont and all over this country, why do you think the Social Security Administration is now closing down offices and laying off 7,000 employees? And we have heard from Mr. Dudek that he wants to cut up to half of Social Security's work was when the department is now understaffed, people can't get through. Do you think it makes sense to lay off half the staff?

Mr. Bisignano (01:58:09):

First and foremost I'm not there, sir.

Senator Sanders (01:58:12):

Just to answer the question, please. Do you think it makes sense? I know you're not there. Do you think it makes sense to lay off half of the staff when right now it is a fifty-year low in terms of staffing?

Mr. Bisignano (01:58:22):

Well, I don't know where Mr. Dudek gets his information from and I don't communicate with Mr. Dudek.

Senator Sanders (01:58:31):

I'm just asking you. I mean, I think when Mr. Senator Daines said was right, tough to get through right now, I think common sense would suggest that when it's bad, now you don't lay off half your staff. Would you agree with me?

Mr. Bisignano (01:58:43):

I believe that we can drive efficiency for the rest of our life. I also understand that it takes 20 plus minutes to answer the phone-

Senator Sanders (01:58:55):

On a good day.

Mr. Bisignano (01:58:56):

Right, well that's the average published. Is not how I would report the numbers because I think-

Senator Sanders (01:59:02):

All right, but all that I'm asking when you have a system that is not working now, do you think it's a great idea to lay off half of the employees?

Mr. Bisignano (01:59:08):

I don't know if do I think it's a great idea to lay off half of the employees when a system doesn't work? I think the answer is probably no.

Senator Sanders (01:59:15):

Okay. Now I want to ask you another question, more philosophical if you like. I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, and you made a hundred million dollars recently in compensation at a given year? All right, my question is not to deal with that per se, but right now we have 22% of seniors trying to survive on less than $15,000 a year. A lot of people, older people living in desperation in America. Some of us want to expand Social Security benefits because we think people should not be living on $15,000 a year. We're concerned about the solvency of Social Security. We want to extend it beyond where it is right now. Do you agree with me that it does not make sense for somebody like yourself who makes a hundred million dollars a year in compensation to be paying the same amount into Social Security as somebody who makes 176,000? Or would you work with me to raise that cap so more money can come into the system?

Mr. Bisignano (02:00:09):

I know there's an actuarial function in the area. I know it's analytics. I'm a fact-based, rule-based person. I'm happy to study anything and work side-by-side with you, sir.

Senator Sanders (02:00:20):

All right, all I ask in general right now the system is stressed financially.

Mr. Bisignano (02:00:25):

I'm sorry? I'm sorry?

Senator Sanders (02:00:26):

The system is stressed now financially, we want to increase the solvency and increase the benefits. Is it a good idea to remove the cap, which is now what I think 174,000 so that wealthy people contribute more into the system?

Mr. Bisignano (02:00:39):

I don't think that's the commissioner's job at all, sir. I think the commissioner's job is to run the agency right. I'm happy to provide all the information you want and I'm happy to be a partner in solving every problem.

Senator Sanders (02:00:50):

Okay. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman (02:00:53):

Senator Cantwell.

Senator Cantwell (02:00:55):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I want to follow on my two colleagues in their questions about the operation. And it's clear, I think a lot of the American people, they're very bothered by billionaires taking a shot at their Social Security. And so I just think it sounds out of touch. Secretary Lutnick saying stop payment to find fraud. And then Mr. Musk, who everybody is questioning what his role is anyway, the big one to eliminate. That's what he was saying on Social Security. So those are enough. Those are enough. But now we have these patterns. Let's go after the staffing. Let's go after the office closures. A new requirement to re-register. The American people are scared to death that you're really going after Social Security.

(02:01:52)
So instead of hiring people like my colleagues are suggesting to improve the service, basically you're allowing Elon Musk little DOGE team to go in there and to find fraud. So did they find a dead person in Seattle that was getting Social Security? Yes. Here's the article from the Seattle newspaper by Danny Westney.

(02:02:17)
Oh, wait a minute. He wasn't dead. So not only did my constituent not get his payment in February, they went to his bank account and tried to claw back previous payments from January and December. And then what did he do? He had to go down to the building in Seattle, the federal building that you are trying to close and stand in line for hours and hours and hours to try to say he wasn't dead and to stop taking his money. He made an in-person appointment, but it was pushed back 11 days. 11 days. Ultimately had to wait in line, as I said, which he said quote, " They're so understaffed down there, they think their office is about to be closed down and they don't know where they're going to go. It feels like the agency is being gutted."

(02:03:11)
So I have to ask you, why are we allowing these people to go in and cause havoc to our constituents instead of hiring people to do the job? So I have several questions that you can just answer yes or no. Do you think Social Security is a Ponzi scheme?

Mr. Bisignano (02:03:30):

I've said I believe it's a promise to pay and it's been here for 89 years. It's been one of the truest things we have for our aged and our disabled, and my objective is to continue it and do a great job for the American public.

Senator Cantwell (02:03:49):

Do you think Social Security should be privatized?

Mr. Bisignano (02:03:53):

I've never heard a word of it and I've never thought about it.

Senator Cantwell (02:03:56):

Do you think it should be privatized? Yes or no?

Mr. Bisignano (02:03:59):

I don't believe anybody's thinking about that.

Senator Cantwell (02:04:02):

Okay. Do you think Social Security aid should be raised?

Mr. Bisignano (02:04:05):

I'm sorry.

Senator Cantwell (02:04:05):

Other people have suggested in the administration, I think including the president a prior that Social Security should be raised.

Mr. Bisignano (02:04:14):

The commissioner's job is to ensure that the agency operates correctly. I want to provide all the information required by Senate and by anyone else in order to make the decisions. But I don't believe I'm a decision-maker on any of these items, but I'm happy to provide every piece of information required.

Senator Cantwell (02:04:39):

With this kind of havoc going on my constituents want and deserve answers. Will you commit to posing any cuts to Social Security benefits?

Mr. Bisignano (02:04:48):

We have no objective. I have no objective. And I've been told by the president to ensure that we preserve and protect Social Security.

Senator Cantwell (02:04:57):

Okay. Do you believe that you should be hiring enough staff to service people and stop the DOGE people from cutting my constituents off of their well-deserved check?

(02:05:08)
Now, Mr. Lutnick said he doesn't care. It's okay if they miss a payment. I don't know who his mother-in-law is or what kind of support she's got, but I know my constituent needed that check and he wasn't dead. And so the notion that he has to go through these extraordinary efforts and you guys are encouraging it. So I want to know when it's going to stop, when they're going to stop doing that and instead, fund, as my Republican colleague said, the services of Social Security so that these poor seniors can get their checks.

(02:05:37)
Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman (02:05:39):

Thank you. Senator Warren.

Senator Warren (02:05:43):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So 90 years ago, Congress passed the Social Security Act and the deal was simple. You work hard, you pay into Social Security across all your earnings years, and then when you retire, you can count on having those Social Security benefits that you paid for. And now co-presidents, Trump and Musk want to renege on that deal. So DOGE has taken a sledgehammer to the Social Security Administration, firing staff, closing field offices, and pulling the plug on phone services. Last week, the acting commissioner of Social Security who is openly working with Elon Musk actually threatened to shut down the entire agency. Now, this isn't about efficiency. Elon said the quiet part about his plans right out loud, Musk said we should quote, eliminate Social Security. The richest man in the world said that Social Security for 73 million Americans should be destroyed.

(02:06:45)
Mr. Bisignano, you have been nominated to be in charge of Social Security and seniors need to have a right to know if you're going to protect their benefits. So let's start simple. Say a 66-year-old man qualifies for Social Security. Mr. Bisignano, could the Social Security Administration or Elon Musk or Donald Trump decide to cut her benefits by $5,000 for no reason without a new law passed by Congress?

Mr. Bisignano (02:07:19):

Is that a question ma'am?

Senator Warren (02:07:20):

Yeah, that's a question.

Mr. Bisignano (02:07:22):

I don't see that happening.

Senator Warren (02:07:23):

I didn't ask you if you see it happening. Could they by law cut those benefits without coming to Congress?

Mr. Bisignano (02:07:29):

No.

Senator Warren (02:07:30):

No. All right, so let's dig deeper. Suppose this same 65-year-old calls the helpline to apply for Social Security, but he's told about the new DOGE rule. So he has to go online or in person. He can't drive. He has trouble with the website. So he waits until his niece can get a day off to take him to the local Social Security office. But DOGE closed that office, so they have to drive two hours to get to the next closest office. When they get there, there are only

Senator Warren (02:08:00):

… two people who are staffing a 50 person line, so he doesn't even make it to the front of the line before the office closes and he has to come back. Now, let's assume it takes our fellow three months to straighten this out and he misses a total of $5,000 in benefits checks, which by law he will never get back. So Mr. Bisignano, is that a benefit cut?

Mr. Bisignano (02:08:29):

Well, first of all, Senator, I enjoyed-

Senator Warren (02:08:33):

Is that a benefit cut? I'm sorry. My time is limited here. That's an easy question. Yes or no? Is it a benefit cut?

Mr. Bisignano (02:08:41):

I have no intent to have anything like that happen to my wife ma'am.

Senator Warren (02:08:43):

I understand that. Is it a benefit cut?

Mr. Bisignano (02:08:49):

I'm not sure what to call it. It sounds like a horrible situation.

Senator Warren (02:08:53):

Is the person getting the $5,000 they were legally entitled to?

Mr. Bisignano (02:09:00):

That was your scenario. And so-

Senator Warren (02:09:03):

So are they getting $5,000 they were legally entitled to?

Mr. Bisignano (02:09:09):

I don't know.

Senator Warren (02:09:09):

You don't know?

Mr. Bisignano (02:09:10):

You just told me-

Senator Warren (02:09:12):

Look, let's be clear. That you keep $5,000 from them by announcing a policy it's illegal, but there are backdoor ways to accomplish the same thing. DOGE is considering slashing up to 50% of the Social Security Administration's workforce. That means longer lines, more errors. And for everyone who gives up or who dies before they get their benefits sorted out, those delays and errors also turn into benefit cuts.

(02:09:43)
Elon Musk is the richest man in the world, so he doesn't need Social Security. He'd be glad to get rid of it, but only Congress can cut Social Security benefits and Elon is trying a backdoor way.

(02:09:57)
So Mr. Bisignano, if you are confirmed in this job, will you commit to reversing these cuts so that seniors get the money that the law says they are entitled to?

Mr. Bisignano (02:10:10):

What I will commit to is that I will run the agency and I will be in charge of the agency and I will look at every item you want me to look at.

Senator Warren (02:10:20):

That's not what I'm asking you. You just answered the previous questions by saying you would follow the law.

Mr. Bisignano (02:10:27):

Yes.

Senator Warren (02:10:27):

The law is to deliver the benefits that people are legally entitled to. If you don't have the staff, if you don't answer the phones, if you don't fix the mistakes, people don't get what they're legally entitled to. So I want to know, are you willing to commit right now that you will put enough people back to work so they can do the job of delivering the benefits that Americans earned? Yes or no?

Mr. Bisignano (02:10:57):

I will commit to have the right staffing to get the job done.

Senator Warren (02:11:00):

To get the job done. Meaning delivering the benefits people are entitled to?

Mr. Bisignano (02:11:04):

Yes.

Senator Warren (02:11:04):

I'm going to hold you to that.

Mr. Bisignano (02:11:07):

I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (02:11:14):

Sure.

Speaker 2 (02:11:16):

Senator Young.

Senator Young (02:11:18):

Welcome, Mr. Bisignano. Congratulations on your confirmation. And my mom, who's a Social Security recipient, told me I should really be at this hearing and kick the tires, make sure you're qualified for the job because the Social Security Administration needs skilled leadership. They need effective administrators and people who will level with Congress about the finances of this program and all the rest. So it appears, based on your strong background, that you possess the requisite skills to carry out this mission.

(02:11:59)
I can tell you as someone who's represented the state of Indiana for a number of years, lots of my constituents contact our offices about challenges they're facing with the administration. Specifically, they report long hold times on the phone, being turned away from walk-in services, difficulties scheduling appointments with local Social Security field offices. If confirmed, do you commit to working with my office to ensure that my constituents, people like my mom, their cases and concerns are addressed in a speedy and thorough manner?

Mr. Bisignano (02:12:40):

Yes sir.

Senator Young (02:12:41):

All right. In addition to individual cases brought to you by my and other congressional offices, do you commit to working to ensure that the Social Security Administration provides robust customer service to all Americans?

Mr. Bisignano (02:12:56):

Yes, sir.

Senator Young (02:12:58):

Along with long wait times and other lapses in customer service, my constituents report a high volume of errors being made by Social Security payment centers. Those errors are particularly frequent when processing disability payments and these errors can take months to resolve and correct, creating stress and uncertainty for beneficiaries. I don't know why there are so many errors. Do you commit to finding out?

Mr. Bisignano (02:13:28):

Yeah. I've said that a 1% error rate, which the inspector general reports I believe is probably five digits, needs to move five digits to the right decimal. Starting with a decimal point. I think we'll do all the root cause analysis, we'll do all the process engineering and everything that's required to get to why we have them and how to eliminate them.

Senator Young (02:13:55):

Sounds workmanlike. That's what I would want. You have an extensive background in the payment services industry, including overseeing large, complex payment systems. How exactly would you apply this previous experience to improve the payment processing systems of the administration?

Mr. Bisignano (02:14:16):

Well, I think one thing is about this error rate. I think we have to understand it and in there, we're going to find a lot of opportunity to improve. I think when we look at what we do every day and how we do it. I do also say this idea of the phone rings, it takes us on average 20 plus minutes to answer it. We only answer half the calls.

(02:14:40)
When we understand why all those phone calls come, we can figure out how to serve the American public a lot better. So to me, the job is to analyze everything we do. I know there's a lot of stats out there. I'm not in the department. I'm not doing anything there, but I look at all the data it produces and I see a land of opportunity.

Senator Young (02:15:06):

There's a lot of conversation in our country, within Congress about artificial intelligence and the promise it might bring to large organizations, efficiencies and reduction of errors and all the rest. So in the context of improvements at the Social Security Administration, I'm impressed by the potential that AI might have to enhance government service.

(02:15:30)
As a former tech executive, do you have thoughts about how AI might be integrated into your service delivery and improve operations for the American people?

Mr. Bisignano (02:15:42):

Yeah. I think originally when people hear you say you're going to apply AI, they're concerned. This is a very vulnerable population and we have to be available. And that's why I like to say we're going to meet people where they want to be met. If they want to be met on the phone, we'll answer the phone. If they're going to come in the field office, we'll be available and obviously on the web.

(02:16:08)
But we're also going to improve the jobs of the people within the agency, right? We can do a lot of what they do through AI and be able to get to answers faster. I think AI doesn't only have to be client facing. It needs to be helping out people in the organization do their jobs better. I think it'll help us understand what the right staffing level is. I know we talk a lot about the staffing level here, but we don't really know what the right staffing level is and I think that'll help us across the board. I like to say, and I've said before, AI is just technology. We were using AI before it was called AI.

Senator Young (02:16:48):

Yes, sir. Thank you for answering my questions. Chairman.

Speaker 2 (02:16:52):

Thank you. Senator Bennet.

Senator Bennet (02:16:54):

Chairman, thank you for letting me defer for a moment. I'm glad I was to hear Senator Young's questions about his mom because I think those are exactly the questions that everybody in Colorado has. So thank you, Mr. Bisignano. Thank you for being here and your willingness to serve.

(02:17:13)
I know how you understand, I hope, and this is your testimony, how important it is that Americans receive their Social Security benefits on time and that if a problem arises, that they're able to resolve it quickly and easily, which they have not been able to do for a long time. And you've emphasized the "need to meet beneficiaries" in the three places they want to be, including on the phone, online and in person. But last week, the Social Security Administration said that Americans wouldn't be able to access a number of service options over the phone. Instead, they'll need to either use an online verification process or call to make an in-person appointment. The agency itself estimates that this will add 75,000 to 85,000 in-person visitors a week to field offices. As my colleagues have already said, wait times for appointments can already take a month, and that in-person appointment is only going to get harder to make if the agency cuts 7,000 employees and ends up with the lowest headcount in decades.

(02:18:23)
I'm worried that that's not going to meet the American people where they are. I realize you haven't been over there making these decisions. I know you spent a lot of time in the private sector and I know that there is no well-functioning corporation that would have the kind of waits that we're talking about here. And so I think when it comes to Social Security, really the American people are the ultimate shareholders. Not the members of the Senate and not you. It's the American people and Senator Young's mom that matter.

(02:19:03)
I want to ask you whether you'll commit to hearing from my constituents in Colorado and people across the country before making cuts to staff or before restricting access to customer service. I guess the point I'm making is don't just make assumptions about it, but let's engage your customers, our customers, our constituents, the true shareholders in a discussion about how best to serve them. What are your thoughts about that?

Mr. Bisignano (02:19:31):

First of all, thank you Senator Bennet and thanks for taking the time to in your office with me previously.

Senator Bennet (02:19:39):

Happy to.

Mr. Bisignano (02:19:39):

And I thought you were highly insightful and I'm appreciative.

Senator Bennet (02:19:44):

I hope my mom's watching. Thank you.

Mr. Bisignano (02:19:49):

I thought as I've watched what I consider a fair amount of press releases and announcements that have gone out, because that's just kind of how I learn what's going on. On the daily, I get up in the morning and look at Social Security news. And I thought to myself that… And I was fortunate enough during the last week to meet with Senator Wyden's staff and Senator Crapo's staff and then have a session with all the Senate Finance Committee staffs. That we should have some form of group that before we make a statement of what we're doing, that we go have a conversation about it. Much like I do all the time on anything you do, you're going to affect your constituents. You should get some buy-in in the process. Now we're never going to get 100% of agreement on many things.

Senator Bennet (02:20:55):

True. True.

Mr. Bisignano (02:20:56):

But people also understanding the reason why. This is why we're doing that. I serve tens of thousands of bank branches. They're in communities all over, they're in rural communities. And what we have to do with our technology and innovation there is different than what we may have to do in large cities. And you have to take in the full population and think it through. It doesn't mean you're not going to do it, but I commit to us thinking through a better way for change and understanding what the constituents have to go through.

Senator Bennet (02:21:39):

I appreciate that. I'll submit my other question for the record, and Mr. Chairman, but you're new to government, which is not necessarily a bad thing. What I'll say is that one way or another, we're going to hear from our constituents. If offices are closed and if they can't be served, I think you'd be a lot better listening on the front end than taking the incoming on the back end from Republicans and Democrats up here who have concerned constituents when it comes to Social Security. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Speaker 2 (02:22:11):

Thank you. Senator Smith.

Senator Tina Smith (02:22:14):

Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you Mr. Bisignano for being here today. So you can rest easy, I actually don't have any questions for you today. I can see the handwriting on the wall here and I've heard your responses to the questions so far. So I'd like to just take my time to make a couple of observations about where we are.

(02:22:34)
I have no doubt that you approach this job with the faith that your private sector experience can help make the Social Security Administration work better. But I have no doubt, it has become clear to me that since Elon Musk's DOGE took over the Social Security Administration last month, that this administration is intent on dismantling Social Security and cutting millions of Americans' benefits, including the more than one million Minnesotans who rely on it. And I don't think that I've heard anything today that has changed my assessment of that. And I honestly don't think that there's anything you could say, Mr. Bisignano, that would change that either.

(02:23:16)
You recently said on CNBC that you are fundamentally a DOGE person and I take you at your word. So what I see happening here is that President Trump and Elon Musk's move fast and break things game plan is in fact breaking Social Security. As several of my colleagues have noted today, Musk recently called Social Security the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time and described entitlement spending as the big one to eliminate. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that if Social Security checks didn't go out, seniors like his 94-year-old mother-in-law would just assume their check would come the next month and that would be fine. Obviously, Secretary Lutnick is not in touch with the reality that 22 million Americans, including more than 16 million seniors, would be living in poverty were it not for Social Security. Missing a check means missing dinner.

(02:24:06)
Last week, acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek threatened to shut down the entire agency in a fit after a federal judge informed him that DOGE is not allowed to root around in people's private data. This is a travesty and we can see what's going on here and Minnesotans can see it as well. This is a wholesale effort to dismantle Social Security from the inside out. And this is not about rooting out waste and fraud and abuse. What's happening in the Social Security Administration right now, this is about undermining Social Security.

(02:24:36)
Now, President Trump understands that Americans love Social Security, and so he's claimed that his administration won't touch Social Security. But that is not what is happening and Americans can see it. They are crippling the Social Security Administration. They're making it nearly impossible for people to get their benefits. Trump and Musk, President Trump and his administration, Elon Musk, are simultaneously trying to fire the people who make the Social Security system work. They're closing field offices and then requiring seniors and others to visit those offices to prove that the money that they need is theirs that they earned.

(02:25:14)
And I know what this means for Minnesota. I hear it from my constituents loud and clear when I was home last week and in my office today. Last week, the Social Security Administration announced that it would drastically reduce phone service and force people to apply for benefits in person. And yet, a leaked internal memo acknowledged that this change would cause foot traffic in offices to rise sharply. But instead of expanding capacity, they're shuttering offices. So you can call this rank incompetence or you can call it the don't know don't care game plan that DOGE has taken across the board, but to me it honestly looks like sabotage.

(02:25:52)
So I know that Republicans are saying that they want to save Social Security, but this is a funny way to go about it. And if you want Social Security workers to feel like they're winning again, I can tell you that right now the public servants at SSA feel like they are losing and the people that they serve are losing too. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.

Speaker 2 (02:26:18):

Thank you. Senator Luján.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:26:18):

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it, sir. And thank you to Mr. Bisignano for being with us today. And just to start, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate many of my colleagues on the committee that they hit on some of the same themes and notes that I'm going to touch on today as well.

(02:26:36)
Now, Mr. Bisignano, yes or no, do you believe that every American who has earned Social Security benefits deserves equal access to their benefits regardless of their zip code?

Mr. Bisignano (02:26:53):

Yes.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:26:56):

Since his appointment in February, acting Commissioner Lee Dudek has made several changes to service delivery at the Social Security Administration. One of those changes is a new requirement that all individuals applying for benefits or requesting a direct deposit change through the national 800 number, visit in person a field office to verify their identity.

(02:27:21)
Now, as you may know, New Mexico is a largely rural state. We're not the only one. In some areas, requiring folks to visit an office in person can mean driving several hours in one direction, making benefits harder to access. If confirmed, will you commit to completing an analysis of how this policy change will impact Social Security recipients in rural and frontier counties who will now have to drive and travel to access the services they've earned?

Mr. Bisignano (02:27:56):

If confirmed, I will analyze exactly what this is about.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:28:00):

Mr. Bisignano, will you commit to not closing any field offices in New Mexico?

Mr. Bisignano (02:28:07):

I have no idea whether I can make that commitment because I don't really know what the issue in New Mexico is. But I'm happy to look at it and come back to you, sir.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:28:16):

Will you commit to not closing any field offices in rural and frontier America?

Mr. Bisignano (02:28:22):

I think it is hard to commit to not doing things without ever having analyzed it. I commit to you or anybody that before an office is closed, they will be notified of the analytics and be a partner in the decision.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:28:41):

Mr. Bisignano, do you think Social Security beneficiaries would prefer to have their benefit claims handled by an American worker or an AI chatbot?

Mr. Bisignano (02:28:53):

Can you ask me that question again please?

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:28:55):

Do you think that Social Security beneficiaries in America would rather have their calls answered by an American, a person, or an AI artificial intelligence chatbot?

Mr. Bisignano (02:29:07):

I think it's a choice of the beneficiary. I can't determine that for every beneficiary, but I think they're owed the option to do all of it.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:29:19):

When I call someone based on the wrong charge on a credit card or a ticket that I bought that I can't get my hands on, I keep pressing that zero button until I get a real person. I don't like the AI chatbot.

Mr. Bisignano (02:29:32):

You're exercising your choice. You're exercising your choice, sir.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:29:36):

It's nice to speak to someone that can answer the question instead of just wasting your time. And a chatbot that keeps saying, "What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? Repeat yourself. Repeat yourself. Answer your name. Answer your name." You get the point. The Social Security-

Mr. Bisignano (02:29:51):

Probably not very good chatbots.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:29:54):

None of them are. None of the AI chatbots are good. I'll say that. The Social Security Administration stores a range of sensitive personal information including medical information, bank account numbers and Social Security numbers. Now, according to the acting commissioner, he's authorized several members of DOGE to access Social Security Administration systems and view the sensitive, personal information that is stored at the agency.

(02:30:24)
In our meeting, you confirmed that you've been in contact with individuals affiliated with DOGE. During this contact, has anyone affiliated with DOGE shared with you a justification for accessing the sensitive personal information of Americans outside of agency protocol?

Mr. Bisignano (02:30:42):

I haven't talked to anybody in DOGE about anything around any of that, sir.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:30:48):

As an American citizen who was assigned a Social Security number at birth, do you feel comfortable with DOGE having access to your sensitive, personal information?

Mr. Bisignano (02:31:00):

I think I'd like to answer your question even more broadly, sir. I've spent my whole career protecting PII, whether it was at Citigroup, whether it was JP Morgan, whether it was First Data, whether it was Fiserv. So I don't think it's a DOGE question. I think it's a everybody question. PII is PII, you know? And it needs to be protected.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:31:26):

I appreciate that. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Chairman, that was the answer you gave me in the office, that it needs to be protected. So I'm going to ask the question one more time because it sounds like we're in agreement here. As an American citizen who was assigned a Social Security number at birth, do you feel comfortable with DOGE having access to your sensitive, personal information?

Mr. Bisignano (02:31:48):

I guess I'm answering the question much broader. I'm not comfortable with having it exposed by-

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:31:52):

You're not able to say yes or no?

Mr. Bisignano (02:31:56):

No. I think you're limiting the item to DOGE and I'm trying to tell you the job is to protect all PII.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:32:02):

Do you feel comfortable with anyone having access to your sensitive, personal information?

Mr. Bisignano (02:32:07):

No.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (02:32:08):

I appreciate that. We're on the same page here and just Mr. Chairman, I think that's what we're trying to illustrate here is just to get to the bottom of this nonsense of what we see happening and people's information just being attacked. Who knows where it's going.

(02:32:21)
There was an article this weekend about, what's the name of that company that you send your DNA, and then they… Something 21. And I saw article and article after one another suggesting to people across the country, they should go in there and try to clean up their information because they don't know who's going to buy it. Well, what's going to happen with this? Anyhow, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Speaker 2 (02:32:45):

Senator Barrasso.

Senator Barrasso (02:32:46):

Well, thanks so much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks so much. Congratulations on your nomination. I think you're the right person for the job. I appreciate the chance we've had to meet and to visit because look, in Wyoming, clearly Social Security's critical to the people of our state, aging population. I travel the state, I hear from individuals all around and they depend upon the program, the viability of the program. And we're looking for you to continue to make sure that people of Wyoming and people all across the country continue to receive the benefits that they've earned, they've paid into. And I think it's critical that the program remains strong. Keep our promises to current beneficiaries as well as to future generations.

(02:33:22)
In order to do that, there are a number of issues that I think need to be addressed. Social Security Administration needs to focus on improving customer services. Need to reduce wait times and backlogs, need to modernize and streamline technology and prevent improper payments. And improper payments is a part of this as well. So I think you're the right person to fix these problems. Are you committed to doing everything you can to strengthen the Social Security program and to helping our seniors?

Mr. Bisignano (02:33:49):

I'm 100% committed. I appreciate the question and you know, I want to work on every aspect of what we talked about. It's a services org that has to have a high degree of quality and accuracy.

Senator Barrasso (02:34:02):

Well, it is interesting. We talked here recently about some of the problems with the press's reporting that are just plain wrong. And they might have looked at lists. And as the previous senator from New Mexico said, he said, "I read articles that say this." Well, he may be reading articles that say that, but it doesn't mean it's correct.

(02:34:18)
And case in point is we have a Social Security office in Rock Springs, Wyoming, Sweetwater County. People depend upon it. And I understand that there is a hearing room that is hardly ever used, and I want to close the hearing room, but not the field office. Well, yet what gets reported in the news is the whole thing is going to be closed when there's no truth to that whatsoever, as my office looked into it. So I think it's incumbent on people to if they can't get a direct answer, go to one of your representatives and let them try to check into it. But I'm sure you've seen cases after case of similar misrepresentation in the press.

Mr. Bisignano (02:34:55):

Yes.

Senator Barrasso (02:34:56):

So under the current law, and I want to talk about legislation helping terminally ill individuals. Under current law individuals who are given less than six months to live, they're currently forced to wait more than five months to receive their Social Security disability insurance benefits. Over the last several Congresses, I've been working on a bipartisan basis across the aisle on legislation to help these people with terminal illnesses receive timely access to benefits. People facing terminal illnesses shouldn't be worrying about whether and when they're going to receive the benefits that they need, especially when they have so little time to live and they by law, have to wait six months.

(02:35:37)
That's why I've co-sponsored legislation called the Expedited Disability Insurance Payments for Terminally Ill Individuals. It ends the five-month disability insurance waiting period for those diagnosed with a terminal illness that have less than six months to live. It ensures people with terminal illnesses receive disability benefits in a timely manner while still preserving the integrity of the system. Last year, 30,000 people died waiting for their disability decisions from the Social Security Administration. Of course, previous administration. The last thing people need to deal with when they're facing these end-of-life decisions should be concerned about trying to work their way through the red tape of the Social Security Administration. Americans or loved ones facing significant hardships should get help when they need it the most. So do you have views on the need to streamline and expedite these SSDI benefits for terminally ill individuals?

Mr. Bisignano (02:36:33):

Well, I think in a case like that, many of these are really about process engineering on how to change how we do it. Obviously, that should hit high priority because of the sensitivity of the issue, and I'm happy to go look at it if I'm fortunate enough to be confirmed sir.

Senator Barrasso (02:36:53):

So will you commit to working with me, with my office, including providing technical assistance as needed on making sure that we can get through this red tape?

Mr. Bisignano (02:37:02):

Yes, sir.

Senator Barrasso (02:37:02):

Okay. In terms of improving customer service, and my colleague from New Mexico was just asking the same thing about the average wait times on the national 800 numbers doubled from about 20 minutes in 2019 to over 40 minutes in 2024 under the last administration. Days and days. What are your plans for addressing performance management and improving customer service?

Mr. Bisignano (02:37:25):

Well, I think call centers is one of the easiest areas to manage and monitor and generate individual performance reports and collective performance reports. I also think that we need to ensure that we have the right technology for the agents who answer the phones, right? Because obviously, we've got to look at what the length and duration of call is, what they have to do to answer the call, what they have to do to collect the information. I think AI, while still talking to a human, can help the person, the call center agent get to the problem much quicker.

Senator Barrasso (02:38:07):

And final question, Mr. Chairman. I know my time has expired. What's the biggest obstacle that you might face in trying to upgrade the systems and the infrastructure as you just talked about, the technology?

Mr. Bisignano (02:38:17):

I think it's all about will. I think it's all about will. If you want to get it done, it's not hard to get it done.

Senator Barrasso (02:38:24):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Speaker 2 (02:38:25):

Thank you. Senator Welch.

Senator Welch (02:38:29):

Thank you. I want to tell the senator from Wyoming that I commit to working with you getting those benefits for terminally ill people. Thank you. You know, we had a very good meeting and I appreciate it. You've got an incredible experience and one of the things you have experience in is cutting costs and making things more efficient.

(02:38:49)
Here's my question. When you did that, you would examine the function in the program and assess where changes could be made. That might include changes that reduce personnel, but it also might be a function where you had inadequate personnel and the point would be to enhance the delivery of the purpose of that mission. Isn't that right?

Mr. Bisignano (02:39:21):

Yes.

Senator Welch (02:39:22):

Yeah. And this gets to DOGE. Here's my problem with DOGE. It's not about efficiency. There's nobody here who doesn't want to have our committee run more efficiently or our Congress run more efficiently. No, you first among them. But my point here is it's a point you've made Mr. Chairman, but what's happened with DOGE…. And the news is in on this. I mean, this isn't a debatable proposition. They're shooting first and aiming later, and it's really had incredibly damaging effects on what's going on. You know,

Senator Welch (02:40:00):

Just this morning, all of us are concerned about the service that is being provided to the citizens that we all represent. But there was an article in the Washington Post that just was talking about how the services totally deteriorating, the wait times are longer than ever. That's been in the Wall Street Journal as well. And with DOGE doing this, isn't that upside down where they shoot first and aim later? Just as a matter of process, not asking you to comment on the great Elon Musk.

Mr. Bisignano (02:40:42):

What's the question?

Senator Welch (02:40:43):

The question is doesn't it make sense for an agency whose goal is to have it place be more efficient to study the function first before they start firing people?

Mr. Bisignano (02:40:57):

Yeah. First of all, I think that the agency needs is a multi-discipline-

Senator Welch (02:41:06):

No, but that's what I'm asking. Let's be just direct here. DOGE has sent out termination notices to people by DOGE employees who have no idea who the people are that they're firing. They just know they're on a list and they need a body count in order to be able to claim they're saving money. But nobody took a look at what the function was before they started firing people. I mean, have you ever done that in all of the time of your successful career, that's been a hallmark of being able to make organizations run more efficiently. Would you do it that way?

Mr. Bisignano (02:41:47):

No, no, I'm just-

Senator Welch (02:41:50):

All right. Well, that's the right answer. Nobody would do it.

Mr. Bisignano (02:41:54):

I'm not trying to get the right answer, I'm going to give the honest answer.

Senator Welch (02:41:57):

Nobody would do it that way. And here's the dilemma that you and every other nominee is in. Musk is running roughshod. He could care less about what the function is. He wants a body count and he, from our perspective has way more control over every agency than the head of the agency. And I'd much prefer to have somebody who, with your experience, looks carefully at what the function is and then makes determinations about how to improve the delivery of that function. So you're going to be under the thumb of DOGE. That's the aspect of this that worries me.

Mr. Bisignano (02:42:41):

I am planning on running the agency reporting to the president and I think the president has made clear that DOGE is there for input, but the agency heads owner decisions.

Senator Welch (02:42:54):

You know what? Keep Musk the hell out of Social Security, please. Totally. One Vermonter contacted me about the death benefit. I think we talked about this in my office.

Mr. Bisignano (02:43:10):

We did. I appreciated the time in your office.

Senator Welch (02:43:11):

1955, Mr. Chairman, it is when the death benefit and Social Security was established 255 bucks. It doesn't go as far today as it did before. And I want to work to have that come up to 2025 standards. Do you support doing that in a way that's fiscally responsible for the Social Security benefits?

Mr. Bisignano (02:43:34):

As I said in your office, I'm happy to work on it with you.

Senator Welch (02:43:36):

Okay, thank you. I yield back.

Senator Mike Crapo (02:43:40):

Thank you. Senator Warnock.

Senator Raphael Warnock (02:43:43):

Thank you Chairman Crapo. Mr. Bisignano, welcome to you and to your family present today. Congratulations on your nomination.

Mr. Bisignano (02:43:52):

Thank you.

Senator Raphael Warnock (02:43:53):

Thank you for meeting with me and my office a couple of weeks ago.

Mr. Bisignano (02:43:55):

I enjoyed that. Thank you.

Senator Raphael Warnock (02:43:57):

And thank you. I look forward to continuing our conversation. I want to follow up on some of the issues that we discussed in my office when we met. I shared with you my strong view that retirees in Georgia who rely on Social Security deserve reliable, timely delivery of their full benefits with world-class customer service and you've got a long record of delivering that in the private sphere. That's why so many Georgians and I were alarmed looking at what's happening last month when several news outlets reported that Elon Musk and his DOGE team announced on their own website plans to permanently close five Social Security customer service offices throughout Georgia. These closures in Brumswick, Columbus, Gainesville, Thomasville and Vidalia would give Georgia the highest number of planned Social Security office closures of any state.

(02:44:58)
Those five cities represent five counties with over one hundred and thousand people who rely on Social Security benefits. But since I raised the alarm, since I made some noise about this, DOGE is suddenly out on X, I guess that's what you call the platform now, denying the closures that it posted on his own website. They posted those closures on their website and now no one seems to know what's true or whether or not these announced closures will affect Georgians access to their benefits or other services.

(02:45:38)
So Sir, I know that you aren't currently at the Social Security Administration and perhaps you can't speak to the plans hatched by Elon Musk or DOGE without you, but if you're confirmed to lead the agency, Americans deserve to know who will actually be in charge of their benefits. I think we heard an answer from you a moment ago from my colleague, but I'm going to ask you again for the record, where will a buck stop on decisions specifically with respect to office closures? As someone who represents the state where they announced five closures, I made noise about it. It was on their website. Then they withdrew them and acted like I made it up. They put it on their website. I just need to know when it comes to office closures, who's going to be making that decision? You are Elon Musk?

Mr. Bisignano (02:46:31):

Me.

Senator Raphael Warnock (02:46:33):

That's a good answer. And so I hope to be able to follow up with you on that.

Mr. Bisignano (02:46:37):

And I'm a hundred percent available for you, Sir.

Senator Raphael Warnock (02:46:39):

What was that?

Mr. Bisignano (02:46:40):

I'm a hundred percent available for you.

Senator Raphael Warnock (02:46:43):

I appreciate that, and not with I appreciate that, but so that the seniors in my state, those are the folks I'm concerned about.

Mr. Bisignano (02:46:54):

Yeah. That makes two of us.

Senator Raphael Warnock (02:46:56):

And others. Will you commit to keeping all field offices in my state open for Georgia seniors?

Mr. Bisignano (02:47:04):

I am asked this question more than one time today and what I will commit to is that there will be no decision made without you knowing about it. I have no intent to close field offices, but I've studied nothing on the topic, so it's a little hard to commit to something without-

Senator Raphael Warnock (02:47:23):

I think study is a good thing. And what we've seen so far is no study, no real knowledge about what's going on, just an effort to close offices to be able to announce that you're addressing waste, fraud and abuse. And we all know this is true regardless of whether we're Democrats or Republicans because then they've had to go back and rehire because some of the people they fired. You're a businessman, Sir, and you said earlier you wouldn't operate in this way. And the reason I'm asking about these field officers and these announce changes because it could lead to an increase of 7 million visits to field officers per year across the country. The fact that they're now not allowing you to call on the phone. An estimated 200,000 additional visits in Georgia alone, which is why frankly I think that it's a terrible idea.

(02:48:16)
But if confirmed, will you commit to increased staffing at Georgia Field Officers to account for this massive expected increase in appointments and to help ensure Georgians can easily and efficiently make appointments? Let me be clear about what I'm asking. If you're no longer able to call on the phone, which is a decision that's already been made, and you got to go online or go to the office and actually have it an in-person appointment, you're going to have a backlog. So I want to know what's the answer to that? How is it that I can assure the seniors in my church that their lines are going to get longer and longer? I disagree with the secretary who said, "Well, if his mother-in-law missed a check, she wouldn't worry about it." I guess she wouldn't. Her son-in-law is a billionaire. That is not the story of the seniors in my church. Will you make sure that they have access to find out what's going on with the benefits that they have earned?

Mr. Bisignano (02:49:14):

Senator, first of all, thank you very much. I've spent my career overseeing financial institutions and today I serve 3,500 financial institutions in America and that means we have community banks, rural banks, and I know what it means to have to serve neighborhoods and also serve rural communities. My commitment is that it will be a fact-based rule-based organization we run that we will ensure we have the staffing to get the best level of service for our constituents. So I'm giving you a longer answer, but we will have the talent that we need to get the job done at a service level better in today's.

Senator Raphael Warnock (02:50:08):

I appreciate the answer. I'm just trying to get Georgia residents, senior citizens, the benefits that they have earned.

Mr. Bisignano (02:50:16):

Yes, Sir.

Senator Raphael Warnock (02:50:16):

No one's giving them anything they've paid into the system. Thank you so much.

Mr. Bisignano (02:50:19):

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Senator Raphael Warnock (02:50:21):

Thank you.

Senator Mike Crapo (02:50:22):

Senator Blackburn.

Speaker 3 (02:50:24):

Thank you Mr. Chairman, and congratulations to you.

Mr. Bisignano (02:50:28):

Thank you.

Speaker 3 (02:50:29):

We are delighted to have you before us and we look forward to getting you confirmed and to the Social Security Administration so you can begin to address the problems that exist. And as my colleagues across the aisle have talked this morning, I have found it so interesting that they have wanted to speak in favor of protecting the status quo. And we know that service and wait times and backlogs have existed, you've heard us all mention this. But you know what is so interesting is they accepted that during the Biden administration and they refused to call it out. And now they are wanting to blame the problem they caused, an inaction caused and lack of oversight caused on someone who is not even there and confirmed at this point.

(02:51:33)
So we do look forward to getting you there and we do look forward to having someone who is going to bring the expertise to make certain that the accountability, the transparency that is necessary for a payment system is going to be put in place. I have found it to be so interesting some of their questions around this because what I have found is that the union employees, the labor unions have sought to protect the people that work at Social Security, but their emphasis has not been on the retirees and the recipients. And in order to overhaul an agency, then there are going to have to be new systems, new protocols, new approaches put in place. So when you are confirmed, I would hope that your emphasis will be on protecting those retirees and their payments and not on protecting these labor unions and that you will go through this process of right-sizing, downsizing, and eliminating some of these union employees who have really been obstructionist in this process.

Mr. Bisignano (02:53:01):

I plan on assessing everything we have and having it operate optimally in a manner that serves their beneficiaries. All the people have paid into the system with their hard-earned money.

Speaker 3 (02:53:14):

You mentioned in several of your responses today using AI and quantum networks, AI. Basically what I've discerned from what you've said is you would more or less build a new infrastructure. Is that accurate?

Mr. Bisignano (02:53:32):

Well, I think we would, in order to get there quickly, many times you keep what you have but you peel away parts of it technically, you build a middle layer and then you put in modern technology in front of it. When I took over First Data, it was a lumbering legacy company that was supposed to be at a business and we had the same situation but we're able to build a product called Clover, which became the leading small business software technology and that was able to change the paradigm of the company. I feel we could do the same thing with Social Security. I think we have a strategic advantage with AI. I think we can make all of the work simpler, easier within the department. I think we could drive the accuracy level, know multiple desks, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (02:54:32):

And then speak your approach to fraud and improper payments by using technology to trace and chase.

Mr. Bisignano (02:54:42):

Yeah. I mean, today I helped 3,500 banks figure out how to eliminate their fraud. It's a data business. We can protect all the PII in the world. We don't need to expose any PII to minimize fraud. We need to use better analytic tools and obviously one of the things I'm going to look at is the anti-fraud group and understand how well we're doing there and do they have the right tools to do their job.

Speaker 3 (02:55:16):

We appreciate that. We know you have done this for other companies. You have that expertise. Our goal is to make certain that our Social Security recipients are going to receive what they're entitled to in a timely manner and we know that rooting out the waste and the fraud and the improper payments will help to assure that they get every single penny they're entitled to. Thank you so much. We look forward to confirming you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Mike Crapo (02:55:49):

Thank you. Senator Tillis.

Speaker 4 (02:55:52):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr Bisignano, thank you for being here. I also appreciate you taking time to meet with my staff. I apologize for not being able to meet with you, but I'd already decided I was going to confirm our voting in support of your confirmation. You have exactly the right sort of skills that we need in this, whether it's your business acumen that helped turn around the mortgage banking business unit at JPMC in the middle of a fiscal crisis, whether it's the Clover project, you've got a pretty wide array of experience that I think is going to serve the agency well. One thing I would encourage you to do, Mr Malay, I supported his confirmation. There are things that as you get in there, give me just an indication, there's this current body of work that some of which makes sense. The key performance indicators are not moving in the right direction yet. But give me an idea of what your first 30, 60, 90 days looks like in the agency.

Mr. Bisignano (02:56:57):

I think, first of all, this conversation about the field offices, I want to understand how they actually operate.

Speaker 4 (02:57:03):

And you answer that question. What you're going to find out is after you do the analytics, every member of Congress except for me probably, will like your analytics except to the extent that it affects one of their offices and their district or state.

Mr. Bisignano (02:57:19):

Yes.

Speaker 4 (02:57:19):

And you have my commitment. If you present analytics and say the best and highest use of American taxpayer dollars to support those who are on Social Security is somewhere else, then I'm going to support it. Do not pull any punches. Go after it the way you would in private sector, but continue.

Mr. Bisignano (02:57:37):

Yeah. I think secondly, the phone rings a lot and we don't answer it a lot. We got to understand why is it ringing? What are the staffing levels we need to do the job? What's the technology that we need to do the job? And when I say the staffing levels, that doesn't mean I'm saying we need to add people. We may not know how to shift manage right.

Speaker 4 (02:58:00):

Or you may not have the right people in the roles.

Mr. Bisignano (02:58:02):

Right. Yeah. So I think it's assessing where we're meeting beneficiaries because job one is taking care of all those that rely on us. There'll be a full tech assessment.

Speaker 4 (02:58:14):

Are you going to be the executive sponsor for the transformation of Social Security?

Mr. Bisignano (02:58:18):

A hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (02:58:19):

Do you see anybody else being outside of the organization being anything more than advisors and strategists to help you to that role?

Mr. Bisignano (02:58:26):

No. Never in my career. No.

Speaker 4 (02:58:27):

Would you ever knowingly allow any PII to be viewed by anyone who's not authorized part of a process that you're running?

Mr. Bisignano (02:58:34):

Never in my life.

Speaker 4 (02:58:38):

I believe someone mentioned in an interview, you said you're fundamentally a DOGE person. My guess is what you were saying there is you're fundamentally an efficiency driven person.

Mr. Bisignano (02:58:48):

Yeah. I believe that a higher quality, pristine control gets more efficiency. The largest thing that causes large expense in a company is bad control environments. So I said it in the manner of-

Speaker 4 (02:59:08):

I know exactly-

Mr. Bisignano (02:59:09):

I was driving efficiency before there was such a word.

Speaker 4 (02:59:11):

People only have to look at your resume to understand the context that you intended in that comment. That's why I think you're going to be great for the role. There were other people that were suggesting one of the… I knew I was going to be last so I get to finish wind up. I'm not going to go too far over though at all, but I really feel like people need… There were suggestions made that maybe you're going to cut benefits. Even the president, I was in the White House with the president two weeks ago, he made it very clear that benefits cuts are off the table, period, full stop. And he said the same thing about Medicare and he said the same thing about Medicaid.

(02:59:55)
So you're really there to make sure that people who are eligible for it, who are not necessarily gaming the system, there may be some of that, the vast majority like my 92-year-old mother are not a part of gaming the system and no, she really would appreciate getting the check every month, although family members would chip in that as her source of income. You're committed to making sure the checks get out every month, right?

Mr. Bisignano (03:00:19):

Yes, Sir.

Speaker 4 (03:00:20):

You're committed to making sure that whether is fraud, you root it out, right?

Mr. Bisignano (03:00:23):

Yes, Sir.

Speaker 4 (03:00:24):

You're committed to making sure that every key performance indicator, whether it's wait times, payment processing, you're committed to moving those in a positive direction, right?

Mr. Bisignano (03:00:34):

Up ten right.

Speaker 4 (03:00:36):

Thank you very much, Alex. Supported supporting your confirmation.

Mr. Bisignano (03:00:39):

Thank you, Sir.

Senator Mike Crapo (03:00:40):

Thank you. And Mr. Bisignano, we have one more question. Senator Wyden has asked if he could ask one more question and certainly he can. And then he and I will probably make very brief wrap-up statements and we'll be done. Senator Wyden.

MR. WYDEN (03:00:55):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The nominee has been talking to people at Social Security as far as I can tell, almost every day for weeks now. And as far as I can tell, he's made no objection to anything going on. And quite the contrary, he's been getting people by his insistence brought into the DOGE mentality there at Social Security. So my question to our nominee today is I look at DOGE and I say to myself, "I'm dying to know what our nominee would give the DOGE people for a grade." What kind of grade would you give them for the last couple of months? I look around and I see phones out of whack, databases being invaded. I'm not sure I'd give them a very good grade, but you're a DOGE guy. What kind of grade would you give them for the first couple months?

Mr. Bisignano (03:01:52):

I'm a high quality provider of services to customers, I have my whole life, right? When you look at any indicator of mine, it's about increasing control, increasing employee satisfaction.

MR. WYDEN (03:02:12):

Respectfully, that's not the question.

Mr. Bisignano (03:02:15):

Well, I'm about to answer-

MR. WYDEN (03:02:19):

I'd like to get your appraisal of what their track record is for the first couple of months.

Mr. Bisignano (03:02:23):

I was trying to get to the answer, Sir.

MR. WYDEN (03:02:25):

Please.

Mr. Bisignano (03:02:26):

Right. I believe you need to focus on the client and in this case it's the beneficiary, right? And at this point in time, what I see is an acting commissioner that has maybe been put in a position, as I've said, I do not talk to him. I do not know him. But there's no substitute for experience. I have experience at this. I have experience at this inside and out. Motivating people, delivering for clients, that being the beneficiaries here, being rule-based, being overseen by regulators, reporting to authority, the Senate Finance Committee as opposed to a board of directors. And I think we have somebody in the acting role and you hear them in the papers every day. So I don't know if this is a DOGE issue. I think we have a leadership issue and that's why I'm hopeful. And if I'm to be confirmed that I will be in charge of the agency.

MR. WYDEN (03:03:40):

So let the records show that I asked our nominee twice to give a grade for the DOGE operation. He said he's not even sure it has anything to do with them. I can tell you, my constituents, I have town hall meetings, opened all, I've had more than 1100 of them. Every county, every year, they are terrified because they can't get through on a phone. I spent time with you yesterday. I think you think that AI is a silver bullet. We need phone service. That's what people are asking for right now. I'm all in on trying to work with longer term approaches if seniors are interested in that, but right now they're interested in phone service and somebody who can help them.

(03:04:26)
And you have taken a pass all through the last two and a half hours on giving us any ideas, and you want us to accept that because you have had some background in business, we should accept you as face value. Well, I heard from the whistleblower, and that whistleblower thinks that you haven't told the truth. So I look forward to the answers we're going to get. And until then, I'll keep the record open on my side for any ideas that you have to do something now that'll help people or your assessment of DOGE's performance. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Mike Crapo (03:05:01):

All right. Thank you. We're ready to wrap it up now. And I just want to say, I think that what you have shown today, Mr Bisignano, is that you are the person that needs to have this job. You know how to deliver what we all want from Social Security, and we are all looking forward to moving ahead expeditiously with your nomination. I want to repeat something that Senator Tillis said. The attack all day has been on DOGE and undercutting Social Security and shutting it down or privatizing it or whatever it is. The bottom line is the President of the United States has said, very clearly, that we are not going to cut Social Security benefits. He has said we are not going to cut Medicare benefits and we are not going to cut Medicaid benefits. And no matter what folks, whether it's the media or whether it is those who want to attack the administration want to say, the reality is that it is scare tactics. We look forward to having you at the Social Security Administration to deliver on the performance that you've discussed so well today. And we thank you for being willing to step into this situation and help our country. With that, this hearing is adjourned.

Mr. Bisignano (03:06:28):

Thank you, Sir.