It’s ironic that Freepers will complain when the Dems accuse GOP of wanting to gut Social Security, and then Freepers will turn around and argue against social security as you’re doing —- without seeing that they’re just confirming what the Dems are saying
As for labeling the government bonds that social security surpluses are invested in, “IOUs”, the fact is every bond is an iou - including the treasury bonds that private citizens purchase. You own a bond by loaning money to the federal government, which it uses to fund federal spending. The bond is the government saying “iou” - the government pledges its “bond” to repay your loan in full and with interest. Social Security surpluses are lent in the same way, and the social security system is given bonds pledging that congress will repay with interest. If Bush had been honest h he would have called all bonds - public and private - to be “IOUs”, but he was trying to score a dishonest rhetorical point
As for whether Congress might one day refuse to make good in the bonds purchased by the Social Security system, the same risk is run by any private person lends money to the feds by buying a treasury bond. Your repayment depends on Congress fulfilling its iou to you