Or to paint a full picture for you....
100 say in 1977 they paid $300,000. That $300,000 was then used to buy government bonds.
The government then used lets say... $200,000 to pay off the government bonds that were maturing, and $100,000 to build bridges, or houses for puppies or... whatever.
In 1983 what happened was, to use the same numbers for simplicities sake. $300,000 was used to buy government bonds. $200,000 was used to pay off government bonds that were maturing for social security, and $100,000 was used to build bridges, puppy houses and the like....
The only difference is that Social Security is now considered "off budget" which means that spending masks the true extent of the deficit we're piling up.
If for some reason all revenue collection stopped, there would be zero money to pay people who get social security. It's all hollow promises and it always has been. Note that despite the social security trust fund still having a "surplus" if the debt ceiling wasn't raised, somehow social security checks were the very first thing that wasn't going to be paid. How can this be when we are supposed to currently have a 3 trillion dollar surplus?
Truth is FICA taxes despite being veiled as a "investement" and a system that's self contained...
has ALWAYS been nothing more then another tax. "Surpluses" have always been spent and replaced with bonds. Always, always, always. As such, no surpluses really existed.
