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When congress borrows and spends, it's borrowing and spending regardless of whether it is borrowing from SSA or China. Depending on what Congress spends money on, and whether it will help our economy or not, it may or may not be an investment. Most of the spending now, is not an investment.

To SSA it IS an investment. U.S. Treasuries are still the safest investment in the world. If SSA was an independent agency no one could say that it's not an investment.

That SSA is not an independent agency, does not change the fact, that SSA must still put the money somewhere. The choices are limited.

They can put cash in a lock box and watch it eaten by inflation.
They can invest in the U.S. Treasuries and be certain that they will bet the cash plus interest back, though they can't be certain the interest will be sufficient to maintain purchasing power.
They can invest in securities issued by other less trustworthy governments.
They can invest in stock with it's ups and downs.
They can invest in debt from corporations, though corporations spend the money as fast as they borrow it too. And they default, which the U.S. won't, if only because the U.S. can print money.
They can buy $1800/oz gold in hopes that it's not the top of the bubble ala 1980 again.

Unless you got a better idea, treasuries are the appropriate place for SSA funds.

These facts are true:

The economy only produces X goods at any given time.
Y workers produce those X goods.
E elderly people consume goods, but they don't produce.
Y workers have got to produce enough to provide for the needs of both Y and E.

This is true whether or not:

E has saved their own funds to spend on the goods Y produces.
Or government has saved E's funds for them and doles it out.
Or government spent E's funds and now has to tax Y to give E's funds back.
Or neither government or elderly saves funds and government taxes Y to provide for E that is now indigent.

The problem isn't SSA or what SSA invests in. The only two problems are

that government spends too much, which really has nothing to do with SSA.
And that old people are a drain on the production of young workers. Which isn't really a problem just a fact. And about which nothing can be done, except ensure that the best economic environment for young workers to produce is maintained, and that the best environment for families is maintained.

You are confused.

The government has two sources for revenue at any moment in time, current taxes and current borrowing.

Over the next thirty years there will be certain Social Security payments made to those Americans who are presently age 50 or over (say) and are eligible, or soon will be eligible to receive Social Security retirement benefits.

Whatever benefits those future recipients collect will be funded (just as all other government outlays are funded) by future taxes and future borrowing.

The impact on the economy and on the future taxpayers of those future Social Security benefits is entirely unaffected by the imaginary existence of an imaginary trust fund. The U.S. Treasury can have a big box of U.S. Treasury bonds or it can have a big box of make-believe unicorn turds, it doesn’t matter.

The past is the past. There is no trust fund. And there is a huge slug of Americans at or near retirement age for whom there have been no actual assets (e.g. cash, gold, securities, etc.) set aside to cover their future Social Security retirement benefits.

Those benefits, whatever they are, will be funded by future taxpayers.

You've forgotten a crucial point. SSA is part of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government.

According to today's accounting rules, any legal entity with a wholly-owned subsidiary that declares "assets" that are debts of that same entity, or another wholly-owned subsidiary, has committed a major no-no. Wholly-owned subsidiaries are supposed have their books consolidated with the parent's.

By that standard, SSA has no assets. Also, the Treasury securities issued to SSA don't exist as real liabilities.

Someone could muddy the issue and say that SSA isn't like a wholly-owned subsidiary because it isn't owned, but the lines of authority make it clear that it's a subsidiary of FedGov. The Treasury is under the President; so is the SSA. Their top bosses both serve at pleasure of the President of the United States. By the pragmatists' duck criterion, SSA is a de facto wholly-owned subsidiary of the U.S. government by the lines-of-authority test. So is Treasury. Thus, they should be consolidated.

Seen in this light, there's a better analogy for Social Sercurity: Enron.

I should note that applying the consolidation rule means that Treaury debt is significantly lower than the stated total. Debt held by SSA shouldn't be counted in the total. That means the total funded debt load of the U.S. government isn't 100% of GDP; it's more like 70%. Of course, the unfunded liabilities (using the moral-obligation standard) are much higher.