“Social Security needs a commissioner whose loyalty is to beneficiaries, not Elon Musk,” said one advocate.

As Democrats on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee grilled financial services executive Frank Bisignano at his confirmation hearing to oversee Social Security on Tuesday, a progressive think tank reported that the Trump administration’s cuts to the popular program have already created “unnecessary barriers for millions of beneficiaries to access the benefits they earned.”

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed he is “not touching” Social Security benefits, but the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) said his insistence “may be a distinction without a difference if his administration’s actions delay benefits or make it harder to get them in the first place.”

The group outlined four ways in which Trump and Elon Musk, the billionaire tech CEO who he named as head of the advisory board he created to slash public spending, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have created “the potential for significant damage to the program” without taking action to explicitly make cuts to the benefits relied on by 73 million retirees, people with disabilities, and survivors of deceased parents.

Trump and Musk have worked to weaken Social Security by:

• Launching rhetorical attacks on the program, including false claims of massive fraud—providing a pretext for actions that could undermine eligible beneficiaries’ access to benefits, such as privatization;
• Engaging in deep cuts to staffing and new restrictions on phone-based services for the public, likely leading to the overwhelming of Social Security offices across the country, dozens of which are set to close this year under DOGE orders;
• Jeopardizing the reliability of the Social Security Administration (SSA) systems, including through the sharp reduction of staff with technical expertise; and
• Threatening the security of people’s personal information by giving untrained DOGE political appointees unprecedented access to sensitive SSA data.

In recent weeks, longtime employees of the SSA have shed light on the impact of DOGE cutting 12% of the staff, with the former acting chief of staff to acting Commissioner Leland Dudek, Tiffany Flick, saying in a court filing before her retirement in February that DOGE’s “disregard for critical processes… and lack of interest in understanding [SSA’s] systems and programs… combined with the significant loss of expertise as more and more agency personnel leave, have me seriously concerned that SSA programs will continue to function and operate without disruption.”

But at Bisgnano’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Democratic lawmakers were alarmed by his refusal to acknowledge the damage done by DOGE at SSA.

Noting that Bisignano has referred to himself as a “DOGE guy,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked the nominee what grade he would give Musk’s advisory body’s activities at the SSA over the past two months.

“I look around and I see phones out of whack, offices out of whack, databases being invaded,” said Wyden. “I’m not sure I’d give them a very good grade, but you’re a ‘DOGE guy.'”

Bisignano did not answer the direct question, instead saying he has spent his career pursuing “employee satisfaction” and “increasing control.”

Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) told reporters after the hearing that with Bisignano signaling he is “all in on DOGE… I see no reason to trust that he is going to do anything but be an enthusiastic participant in what Elon Musk and Donald Trump are trying to do to Social Security, which is to cause it, as far as I can see, to collapse from the inside.”

Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works, noted that Bisignano’s career in financial services has been “right in line with DOGE.”

“He cut staffing to the bone and reportedly created toxic work environments,” said Altman. “If he is confirmed, the now toxic work environment at SSA will likely get worse.”

Wyden’s questioning of Bisignano also revealed that the nominee was involved in discussions about DOGE at the agency, with Bisignano claiming that he was not before the senator produced a statement from a senior official saying the nominee insisted “on personally approving DOGE hires at the agency.”

“Today’s hearing showed that Frank Bisignano is not the cure to the DOGE-manufactured chaos at the Social Security Administration. In fact, he is part of it, and, if confirmed, would make it even worse,” said Altman. “Social Security needs a commissioner whose loyalty is to beneficiaries, not Elon Musk. Bisignano would not even contradict Musk’s slander that Social Security is a criminal Ponzi scheme. Every senator who cares about Social Security’s future should vote no on the confirmation of Frank Bisignano. He is not only unqualified, with no expertise regarding this vital program—he is dangerous to it.”

While Democrats expressed outrage over the administration’s efforts to gut the program that 40% of American retirees rely on as their primary source of income, one of the Republicans on the committee, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) explicitly gave Bisignano his blessing to “go after [Social Security] the way you would in the private sector.”

“With his comments today in support of Social Security office closures, Sen. Tillis revealed the fact that protecting seniors and the disabled is an afterthought for congressional Republicans and that they have one true agenda—gutting vital programs like Social Security to pay for tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires,” said Unrig Our Economy spokesperson Kobie Christian. “The 73 million Americans currently receiving Social Security are not numbers on a balance sheet that Republicans should ‘go after.’ They are everyday people who worked hard to earn their benefits. It’s time that members of Congress stop this crusade on families across the country and put an end to this pro-billionaire agenda.”

As Common Dreamsreported Tuesday, the changes at SSA that Tillis endorsed and called for more of include the agency’s website crashing four times in 10 days recently, panicked beneficiaries being forced to wait on hold for up to 4-5 hours, and employees left wondering whether they will receive proper training to verify people’s identities at field offices as the agency prepares to end phone services at the direction of the White House.

At the hearing, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) explained how those changes are in fact cuts to Social Security benefits—no matter how many times Trump claims otherwise.

If a 65-year-old retiree can’t use the SSA’s phone service to verify his identity and apply for benefits and has to wait for a family member to get a day off work to drive him two hours to the only understaffed SSA office in the area that hasn’t been closed, she said, “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.”

“Is that a benefit cut?” Warren asked.

Bisignano did not answer the question, saying he wasn’t sure “what to call” the scenario described by the senator.

Bisignano claimed at the hearing that he will “run the SSA in a way that properly serves beneficiaries,” said Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. “But that will be impossible if he does not undo the reckless policies that acting Commissioner Leland Dudek has put in place under the influence of Elon Musk and DOGE, with the implied consent of President Trump, which have seriously disrupted customer service for seniors and people with disabilities.”

“Significantly and alarmingly, Bisignano would not commit to ending Musk and DOGE’s interference at SSA, nor to reversing any of their dangerous policies,” said Richtman. “He cannot live up to his promises to put the interests of beneficiaries first if the man who recently called Social Security a Ponzi scheme continues to call the shots.”

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