March 26 (UPI) — Senate Democrats on Wednesday called for the president’s pick for Social Security chief to have his nomination rescinded amid what lawmakers and experts say will be deep cuts to the program via DOGE.
It arrived a day after President Donald Trump‘s nominee to run the Social Security Administration, Frank Bisignano, sat before lawmakers on the way to a likely confirmation, but senators now say that he “lied” to them after whistleblower testimony.
On Tuesday, Senate Democrats unveiled a report that highlighted likely cuts to Social Security by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, and accused Bisignano Wednesday of lying about his involvement with DOGE.
It noted how Musk, the world’s richest man who receives billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded government contracts for companies such as SpaceX, is “making a direct attack on America’s seniors,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a release.
He noted that 73 millions disabled Americans and seniors are on Social Security, as well as noting Wednesday during a press conference that Musk has called the federal benefit “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
“Now their goal is clear,” Schumer told reporters flanked by Sen. Maria Cantrell, D-Wash., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
“Destroy Social Security from within. Make it so unworkable, so inefficient, that Donald Trump has the pretext to slash benefits to kill it, and then privatize the program,” he said.
He noted that DOGE plans to cut at least 12%, or nearly 7,000 SSA workers, that could extend work for months or years. Meanwhile, the agency is already at the lowest staffing level in 50 years.
The SSA processes about nine million applications for benefits each year with at least 30 million recipients visiting some 1,200 field offices for much-needed support in-person.
New York’s senior senator pointed to how six of 10 SSA regional offices and at least 47 field offices will be shut down under Republican plans lead by Musk’s DOGE.
Also on Tuesday, Trump’s SSA commissioner nominee was before the Senate’s Finance Committee but senators are now calling for him to step aside.
He went on to say the administration will meet beneficiaries “where they wanna be met,” which included in person, at field offices, on the Internet or over the phone as fears mount over Trump administration changes to limit access.
Schumer said Wednesday that to confirm Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano to lead the agency “is like hiring an arsonist to run the fire station,” and called on Trump to withdraw Bisignano’s nomination.
Bisignano, 65, has been CEO of financial tech company Fiserv since July 2020, during which stock price and company revenue reportedly more than doubled under his tenure.
Bisignano, Wyden said after Schumer stepped off the podium, gave “a gob-smacking performance” and “truly ominous testimony.”
According to Wyden, the business tycoon “lied” to the Senate committee about his involvement with DOGE, saying how a whistleblower previously reached out to his office and that later testimony showed Bisignano “appears to be the puppet master behind the chaos” at the troubled agency, which he says was independently verified by multiple sources.
“So this development in the last 24 hours has created a trust gap between the nominee and the American people before he’s even in the door,” Oregon’s Democratic senator said.
He called for a bipartisan investigation.
“He was aware of plans to shutter regional offices, close the offices of civil rights, anti-fraud, and modernization,” Wyden said of Bisignano. “He was aware of DOGE’s plans to reduce the workforce by thousands of people. He was also aware of sweeping personal data that DOGE agents were requesting, and that those requests flew in the face of privacy law and agency safeguards to ensure Americans’ most valuable personal information is protected,” he continued.
Meanwhile, Cantwell went on to say the Trump administration “is trying to claim fraud.”
She said how during Trump’s recent address to a joint session of Congress, he went “on and on…about fraud.”
“Well, Mr. President, it is your billionaire cabinet and DOGE leader that are defrauding the American public from their right to retirement with Social Security,” stated Cantwell.
Cantwell blasted recent comments made by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick who said how if social security “didn’t send out their checks this month, my mother-in-law who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain. She just wouldn’t. She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month.”
She called Lutnick’s comments “ridiculous” and says he is “so out of touch with the American people that he doesn’t understand that people are depending on (social security) for a lifeline,” said Cantwell.
“And yet he thinks they can wait months and months to find out,” the Washington senator added.