WASHINGTON — Frank Bisignano, a Wall Street veteran who has served as the chairman and CEO of payments tech company Fiserv since 2020, sought to reassure lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee that he wouldn't privatize social security as the panel considered his nomination to lead the Social Security Administration.
Lawmakers quizzed Bisignano on his plans for the agency amid cuts to offices and employees at the agency led by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Democratic senators on the Senate Finance panel said they feared that the cuts are part of conservative effort to privatize the agency, which could make it more expensive and difficult for benefit beneficiaries.
"I don't think I have heard anything today that would change my mind," said Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn. "You recently said on CNBC that you are fundamentally a DOGE person, and I take you at your word."
For his part, Bisignano insisted that the plans for the Social Security Administration were not to privatize the agency. He repeated claims that DOGE and President Donald Trump are trying to root out fraud and increase efficiency, despite DOGE's attempt to reduce staffing levels and shutter offices.
"I've never thought about privatizing," Bisignano said in response to a question from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. "It's not a word that anybody has 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."
Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, doubled down on the Trump administration's claims that it would not reduce benefits.
Musk, meanwhile, has described Social Security as the "biggest Ponzi scheme of all time," and told Fox Business in an interview that the program was "the big one to eliminate."
"The attack all day has been on DOGE and undercutting Social Security or privatizing it or whatever it is," Crapo said. "The bottom line is the president of the United States has said very clearly that we are not going to cut Social Security benefits."
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Bisignano particularly pointed to the role that technology and artificial intelligence could play in modernizing the agency. In his private sector career, he has been an advocate for slashing costs and automating processes with technology.
"I think you know originally, when people hear you say you're going to apply AI, they're concerned," he said. "You know, this is a very vulnerable population, and we have to be available, and that's why I like to say we are going to meet people where they are. If they want to be met on the phone, then we'll answer the phone, and if they want to meet in person then we'll have a field office and of course on the web."
He said that AI could be used to help Social Security Administration employees better perform their jobs, saying at the same time that the technology might reduce staffing levels at the agency.
"We're also going to improve the jobs of the people within the agency," Bisignano said. "We can do a lot of what they do through AI and be able to get to answers faster, so I think AI doesn't normally have to be client facing. It needs to be helping out people in the organization do their jobs better."
He said that the AI would "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," Bisignano said.
