By Nathan Layne and Tim Reid
(Reuters) -Frank Bisignano, President Donald Trump’s nominee to oversee the Social Security Administration, said on Tuesday he had not spoken with anyone about the possibility of privatizing the agency.
“I’ve never thought about privatizing,” he told a Senate confirmation hearing. “It’s not a word that anybody’s 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,” Bisignano said in response to a question about the prospect of privatization.
Some Republicans have in the past called for privatizing social security. Advocates for retirees and the disabled say privatizing the agency could result in reduced benefit payments to millions of Americans who rely on them.
The confirmation hearing comes as the massive retirement system, which pays out $1.4 trillion in benefits to 73 million elderly and disabled Americans annually, is cutting staff, closing field offices and restricting what recipients can do over the phone as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to slash the size and cost of the federal bureaucracy.
The agency has been targeted for significant cuts by tech billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, rattling employees and advocates who fear the cuts could slow or interrupt the payment of benefits.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in New York, additional reporting by Tim Reid, editing by Ross Colvin)
