Depends on how you look at it. All the excess money that was collected via the SS payroll tax has been spent via the the general fund by congress. They replaced that money with IOU’s. Of course congress does not have the money to pay it back.
But don’t forget that the SS tax is still being collected. So new money is still coming in. My understanding is that at this time it is pretty close to enough to pay current obligations. But the line has been crossed now where it is not quite enough. Since there is a surge in people retiring, and a reduction in employed people...Then It will very soon go very upside down. At that time the SS fund should have been able to rely on “Saved” money to make up the difference until something like 2037. But as I said that money has already been stolen and spent. So the only way congress can replace it is to borrow more on the national debt. Then that debt becomes all of our debt for which we pay interest besides. So we pay for social security twice because of what congress has done.
If we had not raised the debt ceiling then we still could have payed almost all of social security at this time via the SS tax from pay checks. That is of course, unless congress and treasury continued to steal that money for the general fund. And therefore made a direct choice not to use that money to pay current social security benefits.
I hope that helps.
If you Google Galveston county and Social Security, you find a Texas county that dropped out of SS in the '70's to save their own retirement and now clerks and garbage men drive diesel pusher motor homes around the country between cruises. On SS they would have gotten about $1500 a month whether they needed it or not.