You still aren’t thinking.
If SS has been running a surplus since its inception, but there’s nothing but IOUs in the piggy bank...then OBVIOUSLY it’s quite a bit more than a scam to transfer wealth from youngsters to old people, isn’t it??!?!
Think some more.
No. All “surplus” means is that one revenue stream (payroll taxes) was once enough to pay retirees receiving SS and Medicare and to provide revenue for other government boondoggles. Now the payroll tax is insufficient, so now general revenues and deficit spending are needed to transfer money to retires.
SS was always a wealth transfer scheme. It was never “insurance” or actuarially based. This was pointed out when it was adopted, and there is a vast conservative literature pointing out that how words and phrases like “trust fund”, “surplus”, “old age insurance” are just cynical misuses of words to mislead the public.
SS is not “insurance”, there is no “trust fund” (the IOUs aren’t backed by anything other than a willingness to tax the daylights out of working people for the benefit of geezers, which means that it is no different from any other statutory income transfer program.), and nobody has an “account”.