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tina smith
Social Security Hearing Shows Trump Pick Bisignano Would Worsen 'DOGE-Manufactured Chaos'
"Social Security needs a commissioner whose loyalty is to beneficiaries, not Elon Musk," said one advocate.
Mar 25, 2025
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."
"What kind of grade would you give the DOGE people at Social Security?" - @wyden.senate.gov Bisignano refuses to answer the question.
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) March 25, 2025 at 12:59 PM
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.
"DOGE is considering slashing up to 50% of the Social Security Administration's workforce. That means longer lines, and more errors. For everyone who gives up or who dies before they get their benefits sorted out, it is a benefit cut." - @warren.senate.gov
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) March 25, 2025 at 12:06 PM
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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Congress Must Repeal Its Cap on Public Housing Now
The Faircloth Amendment and the consistent underfunding of public housing has caused the number of public housing units to decline 40% from 1.4 million in 1994 to 835,000 in 2022 while the need has steadily increased.
Dec 13, 2024
Randall Irvin has been waiting for public housing in Chicago for six years, and his situation is not that unusual. For example, there are over 100,000 families on San Antonio’s waitlist for public housing. In Chicago, there were more than 200,000 families on the waitlist in 2023. Public housing waiting lists are extremely long because there is an inadequate supply—and a 1998 amendment to federal housing law is a significant barrier to building new housing.
Table 1 lists the average number of months households waited before they were able to receive public housing in selected metropolitan areas according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It ranges from a low of 11 months in San Antonio to a high of 84 months (seven years) in Miami. These numbers hide the wide range of variation around the average. In the city of Chicago, families can wait for as few as six months or as long as 25 years depending on the specifics of their situation and their family size. Households that are still waiting for housing or that never receive housing are not included in the calculation of the averages, so these average wait times do not fully capture the difficulty of obtaining public housing.
The families remaining on public housing waitlists for housing for years are in desperate situations. They are people who are homeless, who are living in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, and who are struggling to afford their housing. In Washington, D.C., Rosalynn Talley, who waited 14 years for public housing, described her overcrowded housing situation as being “smashed up like sardines.” Her neighborhood was also unsafe, and there was mold in the house.
Congress is to blame for the low supply of public housing. In 1998, Congress passed the Faircloth Amendment which put a cap on the number of public housing units. The cap and the consistent underfunding of public housing has caused the number of public housing units to decline 40% from 1.4 million in 1994 to 835,000 in 2022 while the need for affordable housing has steadily increased.
Public housing is one of the most affordable forms of housing, but affordable housing policy has shifted to relying on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). LIHTC goes to private developers and investors and creates “affordable” housing that is often more expensive to renters than public housing. The Joint Center for Housing Studies reports that “LIHTC [housing] does not necessarily protect a renter from [housing] cost burdens.” While the Faircloth Amendment has been a benefit to the for-profit real estate industry, it has hurt low-income renters.
Thankfully, there are some in Congress working to undo this bad law. The Homes Act, introduced by Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), if passed, would repeal the Faircloth Amendment and provide the funding needed to address the maintenance and repair backlog in public housing. Currently, the bill has 40 supporters in the House of Representatives and two supporters in the Senate. Repealing the Faircloth Amendment would open another channel to address the affordable housing crisis.
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Why Wall Street Landlords Love a Housing Shortage
And how a new social housing bill introduced Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Tina Smith aims to address the crisis harming families and communities nationwide.
Sep 24, 2024
In its most recent year-end letter, the private equity firm Blackstone gave its stockholders a seemingly counterintuitive assurance: the lack of new housing stock was reason for optimism.
Why does a stagnant growth in new living spaces benefit Blackstone? Because it is the nation’s largest corporate landlord. For the firm and its investors, chronic housing shortages mean more power to set prices and more leverage to extract wealth from vulnerable working-class tenants.
Blackstone’s letter reveals the malevolent and distortionary role private equity plays in our residential real estate market and underscores the fundamental problem with housing commodification writ large.
Our market-based system simply does not give the private sector incentives to meet the public’s demand for high-quality, permanently affordable housing. Providing it would be against the sector’s economic interests since new supply would bring down prices and negatively impact profitability.
Social housing will make certain that housing is treated as a public good that satisfies a social need, not a financial asset to profit off of.
The negative effects of housing commodification are all around us. For-profit investors are snatching up properties at an alarming rate – 1 in 6 of all residential homes in the second quarter of this year – giving them the power to charge residents junk fees on top of rent increases.
As a result, a record number of renter households – 22.4 million individuals and families, half of all renters – are now paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent and other housing-related expenses. This places a significant strain on household budgets and contributes to a range of problems related to mental health including anxiety and depression.
Tenant unions and working-class institutions across the country have spent years fighting back against the financialization of housing, organizing their communities against speculators in favor of greater tenant protections and fighting for housing to be a human right.
A promising step in this direction was taken last week when Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced new legislation designed to solve our acute affordability crisis.
The Homes Act would invest in the construction of new social housing while dedicating resources to rehabilitate the existing stock. The bill proposes to establish a Housing Development Authority, authorizing $300 billion over the next ten years for the new department to finance and develop permanently affordable housing. It would also repeal the obsolete Faircloth Amendment, a provision that effectively limits the availability of public housing, removing structural barriers to the construction of new public units.
Rents would be capped at 25 percent of a household’s income for tenants, greatly easing the burden of housing for them.
Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the bill is the importance it places on equity and democracy. The new units will be built by union workers; priority will be given to protect underserved communities of color from displacement; a significant share of the affordable housing stock will be earmarked for households with low incomes; and many of the new homes will be placed under democratic and community control when transferred to eligible entities like community land trusts and tenant-owned cooperatives.
The emphasis on permanence in the provision of social housing is critical for understanding housing struggles today. Permanent affordability will not only begin the process of decommodification, but it will also protect buildings from private equity firms who see affordable housing as another sector they can plunder.
Affordable housing already accounts for eight percent of Blackstone’s BREIT portfolio, but there is no genuine commitment to providing reasonably priced homes to working-class households. The firm has opened its coffers more than once to defeat rent control ballot initiatives and it exploits programs like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) to secure the tax benefits that come with investing in affordable housing. Yet Blackstone still raises rents, evicts tenants, and underinvests in maintenance.
The permanence of affordability is the cornerstone of social housing. Social housing will make certain that housing is treated as a public good that satisfies a social need, not a financial asset to profit off of. Only when speculators and concentrated wealth are reined in will we solve the housing crisis and guarantee safe, healthy, affordable, and dignified homes for all.
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