EDITORIAL: A bizarre attack on Frank Bisignano misses the mark
The Washington Reporter generally doesn’t critique other outlets’ reporting. We’ll make an exception.
NOTUS questioned whether Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano crossed an ethical line by sending agency employees chocolate-covered pretzels from his daughter’s company.
The article first quotes an ethics critic suggesting there may be a problem. Only several paragraphs later does it disclose the key fact: no agency funds or staff were used, and the gifts were reviewed and cleared through the agency’s ethics process.
That should have been the lead. Had it been, the story’s premise would have disappeared. In fact, the story doesn’t even make sense.
According to NOTUS’ own reporting, Bisignano taxpayer dollars weren’t used, government employees weren’t enlisted to promote the business, and ethics officials approved the effort before the pretzels were distributed.
So Bisignano’s small act of kindness at his own expense turned into a negative story on him.
The article also gives relatively little attention to Bisignano’s actual record leading the Social Security Administration.
According to the agency, callers to the national 800 number are now being served 75 percent faster than under the previous administration. In-person wait times have fallen 30 percent, disability hearing wait times are down 40 percent to historic lows, and employees received the highest dollar amount of performance awards in agency history.
Frank Bisignano left one of the country’s most successful business careers to enter public service and run not one but two of the federal government’s toughest agencies. By virtually every account, he is respected as an exceptionally effective executive, and the early performance numbers suggest he is delivering. Our Hill sources tell us his performance before Congress was extremely strong and he is deeply respected.
No good deed goes unpunished.
One final disclosure: if Commissioner Bisignano has any of these delicious pretzels left over, the Washington Reporter would gladly accept them.
