They go to the Treasury, are credited to the Social Security system and then loaned to the US government.
It's a forced loan, of course, but it's not handled as a direct transfer payment from one individual to another.
Currently Social Security is owed something like 6 trillion bucks by the government.
Remember, too, recipients of Social Security do not consider it an entitlement. Even some of the believers in the '47 percent' meme don't think of it as an entitlement.
About 99% of the time folks who imagine strange things about Social Security are confounding it with Supplemental Security Income (SSI) ~ an entirely different program paid for directly from the Treasury out of borrowed money, or taxes ~ if there are still taxes being paid somewhere.
The federal government also rents buildings, rents equipment, makes long term purchase agreements from manufacturers of all sorts of things, and buys stuff. Much of that activity involves the government writing somebody a check ~ Boeing aircraft are purchased this way. That doesn't make the employees of Boeing, or the owners, into welfare recipients.
Not to sound too terribly pedantic about precision in speech, but the 47% idea didn't do Romney much good. If you want to win a debate ~ and win an election ~ what you want to do is talk about the issues not the psychological pathologies of the participants, or other people. They know their nuts ~ they just don't want to talk about it in public ~ no sense you letting them know that you know that you are all nuts.
It'll make for a cleaner debate and won't PO people who've spent 50 years paying for Social Security!
Social Security is indeed an entitlement program. Your feeling that you are deserving of it doesn’t change the fact. Social Security should be phased out as quickly as possible.
Yep. Exactly right. Of course Romney never expected the remarks to be made public but the lesson there is ALWAYS expect any remarks anywhere to be made public if you running for President. The other lesson is to attack policies not voters. There is no point is pissing off half the voters. Instruct them how dem leftist policies will hurt them and their families. Make it personal as if their lives depend on it.