What you are missing is the current workers pay for the current retirees! If you stop collecting the FICA taxes , you still have to collect taxes to pay the benefits for those who are currently retired. Each working generation places a You-Owe-Me on the next generation for the SS benefits. From the SSA website
year: 1940, workers: 35,390,000 SS Beneficiaries: 222,000 Ratio: 159.4
year: 2013 workers: 163,221,000 SS Beneficiaries: 57,471,000 Ratio: 2.8
The SAA site
https://www.ssa.gov/history/ratios.html
I agree do it but you got to provide for the current crop of retirees (and those who are heavily “invested” [time-wise]) in the system and are likely ready to retire. So “taxes” aren’t going to change much likely go up until the those in t he system die off.
This why the SSA system is called a legal a “Ponzi Scheme”!
You misread me. I called for continued collection of FICA taxes. No one is exempted from that. Said so twice.