WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 03: Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) holds up a redacted document during a hearing about the Crossfire Hurricane investigation in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on December 03, 2020 in Washington, DC. Crossfire Hurricane is the code name for the FBI's 2016 counterintelligence investigation into possible links between President Donald Trump's associates and Russian officials. A Justice Department Inspector General report found no political bias in the initiation of the investigation, which resulted in the Mueller Report finding that the Trump campaign did not conspire or coordinate with the Russian government. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) recently suggested that Medicare and Social Security funding should be up for debate annually, suggesting that the programs could be abolished in the future.
Johnson argued that mandatory spending was at an all-time high due to the pandemic and infrastructure projects.
During the interview on The Regular Joe Show podcast, the senator suggested that Social Security and Medicare be moved to discretionary spending, which would require an annual “evaluation” of the programs.
“Our problem in this country is that more than 70 percent of our federal budget, of our federal spending, is all mandatory spending. It’s on automatic pilot. It never — you just don’t do proper oversight. You don’t get in there and fix the programs going bankrupt. It’s just on automatic pilot,” Johnson said. “As long as things are on automatic pilot, we just continue to pile up debt.”
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Democrats immediately shot down Johnson’s idea, warning Americans that Medicare and Social Security were “on the chopping block,” as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) put it.
“They’re saying the quiet part out loud. MAGA Republicans want to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block,” Schumer stated.
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