Good analysis but it all leads back to this simple statement: today’s benefits are paid from today’s taxes. Any benefit paid to day must be funded by the taxes that are extracted today or funds that are borrowed and might be repaid by future taxes.
If SS has money what and where is it? US Treasury Bonds are not money. They can be redeemed for money if you can force people to give up their own money to pay for the redemption. You cannot run out of something you don’t have.
Amd the best part is that these so called bonds are redeemable for US dollars which are themselves are another form of debt and can be issued in unlimited amounts.
That's true, as long as you qualify it properly.
The federal government collects most revenue from two different types of taxes: payroll taxes and income taxes.
Social Security is funded solely by the payroll tax. During the period that payroll taxes were higher than benefits, the excess was invested in special obligation Treasury bonds (as specified in the original law).
The net effect was the federal government borrowed from Social Security to finance the deficit, instead of borrowing from buyers of US Treasury bonds. This is where some "accounting fiction" comes in, because borrowing from Social Security doesn't add to the official US government debt.
But, like the redemption of US Treasury Bonds, the redemption of these special obligation bonds comes from the general fund. So, it's either paid by income taxes, or by purchases of additional US Treasury bonds.
As you wrote: it's all taxes. But the source of taxes is important, because it determines who pays it. And, once the Trust Fund is empty, the source becomes even more important.
Social Security cannot borrow money. So, if nothing is done between now and about 2034, benefits will be reduced -- by law -- to what can be sustained by incoming payroll taxes. At the moment, that's estimated to be a 20% reduction.