Who Could Argue?

       From Fortune:

For all the talk about Social Security being in crisis, what hasn’t been stressed enough is the leadership crisis. From December of 2023 to until the current leader’s Senate confirmation of May 6, a parade of four commissioners and acting commissioners cycled through the position. These chiefs departed fast in part because they got frequent hammerings in Congress over the agency’s poor phone and face-to-face service to beneficiaries. 

Enter Frank Bisignano. The Jamie Dimon protegee had a storied career in banking, and was appointed to lead SSA last spring (he has since added the job of IRS CEO to his resume, which you can read about here.) 

But the changes he has quickly enacted at SSA—drawing heavily on his time in the private sector—are real, and they’re impressing even the Administration’s fiercest critics.  … 

No matter what your political party, few could argue that an agency in need of efficiency finally has a leader at the top who is moving the needle. 

Sound Familiar?

      From Government Executive:

The Internal Revenue Service is asking seasoned employees without any direct tax experience to perform entry-level tasks of answering phones and processing tax returns, a step impacted staff call unprecedented as the agency scrambles to prepare for filing season. 

The reassigned workers, who are being detailed out on an involuntary basis, are coming from the IRS human resources and, potentially, the IT departments. Some employees reported that supervisors first asked for anyone who had experience in the front-line fields to consider the roles, but they ultimately chose many individuals with no prior experience working directly on tax issues. 

The details come as IRS has dramatically slashed its workforce, cutting more than 20,000 employees—or more than 20% of total staff—in the last year. The divisions seeking internal staffing support have seen similarly significant losses to their workforces and have struggled to rebuild in time for filing season, according to a new report from the IRS inspector general.  …

Senators Have Questions

      The Chairman and Ranking Democratic leader of the Senate Finance Committee are asking for answers from the Social Security Administration on the recent admissions from the agency on the improper sharing of confidential information outside Social Security, possibly including sharing with nongovernmental partisan entities.

     No hearing has been scheduled. A actual hearing might have to involve Bisignano and Republicans don’t want him facing live questions. 

Bisignano’s Other Job

 

    The New York Times has a piece on Frank Bisignano’s time as “CEO” of the Internal Revenue Service that touches a bit on Bisignano’s position at the Social Security Administration. There’s no such position as CEO of the IRS but he’s leading it anyway. Here’s a brief excerpt from the piece:

… He works at the I.R.S. roughly two days a week, commuting from his home in New Jersey to Washington in his private plane, according to five people familiar with his schedule.

“I run two large organizations,” Mr. Bisignano said. “I don’t divide my time. On any given day, for example at 11:15 today, I will have an S.S.A. call, and at 12:30 I will have an I.R.S. call. They’re just two big divisions I run.” …

     Two days a week at the IRS. How often is he present at his Social Security office? Probably not that much. I think we know which job he regards as his day job.

Which Is His Day Job?

      From Tax Notes:

IRS CEO Frank Bisignano is positioned to lead the tax agency through the next filing season and beyond, according to observers.

After seeing seven different commissioners — including one who underwent a full-length confirmation process — the IRS ended 2025 with a leader whose position didn’t exist two months ago. …

Bisignano With Newly Sworn In Deputy Commissioner Arjun Mody

  

From Twitter (X)

Unending Slime

      I have to say just how much it galls me that the Commissioner of Social Security is a man as deficient in character as Frank Bisignano. Within a few months of leaving his old position as CEO of Fiserv, the new company management accused him of what amounts to a “pump and dump” scheme netting him hundreds of millions of dollars. In any other Administration Bisignano would have been forced to resign. In the Trump Administration it’s just another in an unending series of stories demonstrating how slimy many of Trump’s appointees are.

The State Of Customer Service

      The Social Security Administration has posted data showing the state of customer service at Social Security. I’m sure it’s as accurate and meaningful as the earnings projections made at Fiserv while Frank Bisignano was its CEO. Below is one of the charts from Social Security’s posting.

Click to view full-size

Living Rent Free In Bisignano’s Head

      Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano seems a little obsessed with his predecessor, Martin O’Malley.

No Timeline For New Occupational Data

     From NEXTGOV/FCW:

A long-planned refresh of the occupational data used in the disability adjudication process at the Social Security Administration was tucked inside a regulatory overhaul that the Trump administration abandoned last week. 

As a result, the agency now appears to be without a timeline for finalizing that years-in-the-making update, which SSA has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on, according to remarks made by the Social Security commissioner, Frank Bisignano, during a Monday meeting. …

The commissioner was asked multiple times about the future of the data project now that the regulatory changes have been abandoned. 

Bisignano acknowledged that lawmakers think the data needs to be updated, committed to looking into the issue and said that he hoped it could be updated in the future — emphasizing collaboration and consensus building as important for that process — but he didn't share any specific plan or timeline for doing so.  …

Frank Bisignano Exhibiting The Candor And Integrity For Which He’s Known

From a letter to Congress from Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano:

… After just my first six months on the job, I am pleased to report we are delivering a dramatically better customer experience at SSA. … 

     In other news concerning the Commissioner, the Ranking Member of the House Social Security Subcommittee has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Bisignano’s conduct at his former employer, Fiserv. The SEC shouldn’t need a referral from Congressmen to investigate this one but in the Trump Administration no Trump appointee need fear any sort of federal investigation.

Senators Want Answers

      From Government Executive:

… In a letter to [current Fiserv CEO Mike] Lyons, Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the top Democrats on the Senate Finance and Banking committees, respectively, demanded information about the circumstances that led to Fiserv’s issuance of overly rosy revenue projections and the subsequent decision to reevaluate those goals.

“At a minimum, Mr. Bisignano appears to have failed to manage Fiserv effectively, and may have misled investors and the public about the company’s financial status, raising concerns about his ability to serve as a key Social Security and IRS official in the Trump administration,” they wrote. “Because of Mr. Bisignano’s mismanagement, many Fiserv investors, including retirees and members of the public, lost money—a fate Mr. Bisignano avoided. Bisignano’s required divestment of company stock helped him avoid about 300 million in losses cause by the stock’s price decline by over 50%.” …

Après Moi Le Déluge

      From Government Executive:

…  Shares in Fiserv, a financial technology company that processes credit and debit card payments on behalf of businesses and financial institutions, fell more than 40%, or $30 billion in market value, on Wednesday, after CEO Mike Lyons withdrew earnings forecasts originally issued by his predecessor, Bisignano. The stock price fell another 7.1% Thursday.

According to trade publication PaymentsDive, Lyons said that Bisignano’s earnings targets “would have been objectively difficult to achieve, even with the right investment and strong execution.” But instead, Fiserv had in recent years deferred needed investments and cut costs in pursuit of shoring up short-term profit margins. …

The Commissioner Has A Serious Problem Related To The Company He Used To Run

      From Financial Advisor:

Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano’s move into government couldn’t have been better timed, helping the former Fiserv Inc. chief avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from the company’s plunging stock price. 

After the former Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive was tapped by President Donald Trump this year to lead the SSA, he agreed to resign from Fiserv and divest his stake, including common stock, options, restricted stock units and performance equity grants. Bisignano, 66, was also named CEO of the Internal Revenue Service earlier this month. 

Following his resignation, the restricted stock and a portion of the performance grants vested, giving him more than 3.2 million Fiserv shares worth roughly $594 million when he was confirmed to his role in May.  

Bisignano sold Fiserv stock between May 16 and July 1, according to ethics filings. Based on the average share price during the period, the shares would have fetched roughly $530 million. He later confirmed in a filing that he had completed the divestment.  

The same shares today are worth just $229 million—meaning that selling earlier in the year avoided losses of about $300 million. 

Accepting the government role gave Bisignano another valuable perk. In May, he was granted a certificate of divestiture, deferring capital gains tax on the Fiserv sales provided he invested the proceeds in approved assets such as Treasury bills or broadly-based mutual funds. 

Bisignano didn’t respond to messages seeking comment. 

More than half of Bisignano’s potential losses would have come Wednesday, when the payment company’s shares suffered a record plunge of more than 40% after it slashed its full-year earnings outlook and delivered third-quarter results well short of analysts’ estimates. 

     Did the serious problems at Fiserv only begin AFTER Bisignano left? That seems unlikely on the face of it. Was Bisignano aware of the problems BEFORE he left? That seems likely. If he knew of major problems, why hadn’t he told investors?  If he knew, why was he selling stock based upon inside information? 

     The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would ordinarily investigate this sort of thing but this is the Trump Administration. Nobody in the Trump Administration gets investigated. However, they can’t stop shareholder litigation and I would expect that soon. Bisignano will have to answer questions under oath. 

     By the way, Bisignano needs two lawyers, one for the possible securities litigation and the other for possible criminal charges. Trump won’t be in office forever. Unless he gets a pardon, Bisignano could face criminal charges later. 

     This seems like it could be  a serious distraction to a man with two jobs.

      Update: The litigation has already begun.

     Further Update: Here’s an explanation of what is being alleged:

… Fiserv faces a federal securities class-action lawsuit in the Southern District of New York that accuses the company of inflating growth figures for its Clover payments platform. The complaint alleges Fiserv forced merchants on its older and more affordable Payeezy system to move to Clover while claiming that growth came from new customers. Those migrations allegedly artificially boosted short-term revenue and transaction volumes forecasts which in turn hid slowing organic expansion. When many merchants decided to switch to lower-cost rivals such as Square and Toast, Clover’s performance faltered. According to the lawsuit, former CEO Frank Bisignano told investors in 2023 that 90% of Clover’s revenue growth would come from new merchants and just 10% from existing clients, even as the company moved roughly 200,000 Payeezy merchants to Clover through mid-2024. That shift helped lift Clover’s 2024 revenue to $2.7 billion on $310 billion in gross payment volume, but by early 2025, gross payment volume growth slowed to 8%, down from 14%-17% the year before. …

Read About The Wonderful Work Bisignano Is Doing

       There’s a Bisignano puff piece in the Washington Examiner, I suppose that it will please the paid shills commenting here. Does anyone, even on the right, take the Washington Examiner seriously. It’s self consciously a propaganda outlet. No, it’s not a right wing equivalent of the Post. It’s almost a caricature.

     By the way, I don’t mean to demean Bisignano too much. In his own way, he’s probably trying to be a good guy. It’s just that he’s working in a horrifyingly incompetent and dishonest Administration that barely hides its contempt for Social Security. He’s far more devoted to puffing up Trump than running a competent agency. I don’t understand why anyone thinks Trump is deserving of blind loyalty but Bisignano is not alone.

Conflict Of Interest?

      From the Baltimore Sun:

Congressional Democrats are investigating whether Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano knew — and should have disclosed — that his company stood to benefit from a huge contract overseeing a debit card program serving millions of recipients of Social Security and other programs, The Baltimore Sun has learned.

The Senate Finance Committee’s Democratic staff, led by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, is exploring whether Bisignano knew during his confirmation procedures that the firm, Fiserv, had bid — or was planning to — on a pending 5-year Direct Express contract, which distributes government benefits to about 3.4 million Americans via prepaid cards, a committee spokesperson said.

Another Democrat, Connecticut Rep. John Larson, told The Sun that Bisignano’s “connection to Fiserv certainly raises questions about Treasury’s new contract. Especially as he moves to end paper checks for monthly benefits, which could push hundreds of thousands of Americans over to Direct Express, he has a responsibility to be transparent about any potential conflicts of interest.” …

The contract was awarded to Fifth Third, an Ohio-based bank, and began on Sept. 9, according to the company’s news release that day naming Money Network Financial, LLC as the program’s manager. Money Network Financial is a subsidiary of Fiserv, the company Bisignano headed as chairman and CEO until stepping down on May 6 to take over the federal agency. ….

Bisignano At IRS

        There are so many issues with Frank Bisignano's position as "CEO" of IRS. Let me list three that I know of:

• Bisignano is the 8th person to serve as head of the IRS in the eight and a half months that Trump has been back in the White House. The IRS can no longer carry out its core missions because it has fired a quarter of its employees. Why would anyone in their right mind want the job of CEO of such a disaster zone? And you thought that Social Security is a mess!
• The head of IRS is supposed to be the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, not the "CEO." It appears that the President is making up a title to get around submitting a new nomination for Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
• Why not submit a nomination? The nominee would face a confirmation hearing where he or she would have to answer questions Trump doesn't want answered, such as whether the nominee will continue illegally sharing data with ICE and whether the nominee will use the IRS to investigate the President's enemies. Also, the chaos at IRS would be a major topic.

Just When You Think Things Can’t Get Any More Absurd

      From The Hill:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced the head of the Social Security Administration (SSA) would also serve as CEO of the IRS after the tax agency’s previous, Senate-confirmed leader was ousted.

Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano will take on the additional role of CEO of the IRS, where he will oversee day-to-day operations. But Bessent will continue to serve as the acting IRS commissioner, giving him autonomy over the agency. …

Again, Mr. Commissioner, What Are You Going To Do About These Payment Errors?

      From a recent report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

The Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program provides monthly benefits to retired and disabled workers and their dependents as well as the survivors of deceased workers. In general, to be entitled to benefits, a child of a retired, disabled, or deceased worker must: 1) be unmarried; 2) be under age 18, a full-time elementary or secondary school student under age 19, or have become disabled before age 22; and 3) meet certain relationship and dependency requirements. Generally, an SSA employee may appropriately deny a claim when the employee properly completes all necessary actions and determines the applicant has not established the claimant meets the requirements to be entitled to child’s insurance benefits. 

We reviewed a random sample of 100 claims from a population of 21,533 claims filed from January 2019 through July 2023 that SSA employees approved for benefits in July 2023 or earlier and a random sample of 100 claims from a population of 75,424 claims filed from January 2019 through July 2023 SSA employees did not approve for benefits as of July 2023. 

Of the 96,957 claims in our review, we estimate SSA employees correctly denied 37,712 (39 percent) and incorrectly denied 24,555 (25 percent). As a result of employee errors, SSA did not pay these beneficiaries approximately $92.2 million in benefits and delayed paying these beneficiaries approximately $87.7 million in benefits to which they were entitled. 

We could not conclude whether employees correctly denied the remaining 34,690 claims (36 percent). This includes an estimated 28,661 claims SSA employees denied before they appropriately completed all required actions; therefore, there was not enough information in SSA’s records to determine whether Agency employees appropriately denied the claims. …

     This might be tough for the Commissioner. I don’t think it can be solved by laying off employees or intimidating them or demanding they work harder.  It will take analysis of the difficulties in doing this work accurately, coming up with better workflow processes, coming up with better quality control processes and being honest with everyone about the workforce needed to do the job properly. The honesty part will be the hardest thing for this Administration. It’s easier to blame the “deep state” than to do the difficult work of governing. 

OK, Mr. Bisignano, You Want To Reduce Payment Errors, What Are You Going To Do About This?

      From Follow-up on Dually Entitled Beneficiaries and Family Maximum Provisions, a report by Social Security’s Inspector General:

 … This is a follow up to our 2014 audit of the Adjustment of Monthly Benefits Under the Family Maximum Provisions. For our current audit, we identified 23,603 Social Security records with dually entitled beneficiaries and at least 2 other beneficiaries who had a date of entitlement of May 2013 or later and were in current pay status as of May 2023. We selected a random sample of 225 records for review.  …

We estimate SSA correctly adjusted benefits in accordance with the family maximum provisions for 15,211 of the 23,603 wage earners’ records in our population (64 percent); however, SSA improperly paid approximately $114 million to spouses and children on 8,392 wage earners’ records (36 percent). …