Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano has a new job, everybody! You’re looking at the new CEO of the Internal Revenue Service.
No, he’s not stepping down from running the SSA. Why would you think that? And, yes, there has never been such a thing as a “CEO” of a government agency, but why not be the first?
So let’s see if we can diagram this.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is also the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. He’s not going to step down from that job, but Bisignano will run the agency as the CEO, while Bessent stays on in name only. Sure, seems totally legit and doesn’t look at all like the Trump administration is just trying to avoid more Senate confirmations.
Since Bisignano has been appointed to a made-up position, no one knows if it requires Senate confirmation. So, yes, Bisignano will be running both the SSA and the IRS.
But why, pray tell, is he taking on this side hustle?
According to the Trump administration, it’s because the IRS and SSA “share many of the same technological and customer service goals.”
It’s probably more accurate that President Donald Trump wants a beholden crony at both agencies because both have big, delicious databases that he wants to crack open for his deportation machine.
If you’re wondering what kind of experience Bisignano brings to either of these gigs, all you have to know is that he literally had to Google “what is the SSA commissioner” when he was offered the job—a story that Bisignano thinks is funny and endearing, not utterly unhinged.
And it isn’t like Bisignano has covered himself in glory at the SSA thus far. He did oversee the agency explicitly lying about phone service issues, only to correct those nonexistent issues a short time later.
Billy Long, the former commissioner of the IRS
So why, exactly, does Bisignano have not one but two Cabinet jobs now? Mostly because he used to be the CEO of big rapacious companies like Fiserv, and because he and his wife donated more than $1 million to Trump and Trump-related efforts in the last 6 years. So the usual reasons anyone has a job in this administration, really.
Bisignano replaces Billy Long, the former auctioneer who used to advise business owners on how to cheat on their taxes, and he was somehow even less qualified for this job. This will be the seventh person in this role since Trump took office. That’s about one every five or six weeks, which is honestly kind of impressive.
Trump has to keep engaging in all of these complicated shenanigans to get around the fact that his candidates are terrible and often—as he well knows—unconfirmable. Yes, Bisignano was confirmed as head of the SSA by a party-line vote, but who knows if the Senate would rouse itself again to give him the nod for the IRS?
Good luck with your new side hustle, Frank!
