Ron Johnson: Social Security, Medicare should not be entitlements

In an interview on The Regular Joe Show Tuesday, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R) said that all congressional spending should be only discretionary, which would open the door for things like Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security to be defunded.

“What we ought to do is we ought to turn everything into discretionary spending so it’s all evaluated, so that we can fix problems or fix programs that are broken that are going to be going bankrupt,” Johnson said.

NEW: On the The Regular Joe Show, Sen. Ron. Johnson (R-WI) argues for eliminating entitlements: “Social Security and Medicare, if you qualify, you just get it no matter what the cost… We ought to turn everything into discretionary spending so it’s all evaluated.” pic.twitter.com/bE1KUb6uJ5

— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) August 2, 2022

When it comes to how the federal government spends money, the two types of spending are mandatory spending and discretionary spending. Items that fall under mandatory spending are not negotiable, and money is allocated to them automatically based on laws that have been passed and enacted.

Discretionary spending is negotiable, and Congress chooses how much money is allocated to programs under this category. If everything were under discretionary spending, that would give Congress the ability to defund current mandatory spending programs like unemployment, Social Security and student loans.

As reported earlier by Heartland Signal, Johnson is also on record calling social security a “Ponzi scheme.”