> SS is not a general revenue tax - taxes don't have contribution-based payouts.
Did you miss this part of my comment?
> in the case, which is vaguely proposed on and off, that Social Security will never get the money back from its mythical "lockbox", and instead the money will be retroactively turned into just general-treasury money
Especially in the last Social-Security-reform debate a few years ago, there were serious proposals that the Social Security tax surplus notionally held in bonds will never be repaid to Social Security, and therefore reform proposals should be made which allows SS to be solvent under the assumption that it will never get its bonds repaid.
If that happens, a significant part of the past 20 years' Social-Security tax money will not be used for SS payouts, but will be kept by the general treasury. In that case, SS will retroactively have been, in part, a regressive general-revenue tax.
If 100% of the Soc. Sec. money collected is eventually used to pay Soc. Sec. obligations (i.e. SS is able to call its bonds), then my argument doesn't apply. I'm not confident that will happen, though.
Did you miss this part of my comment?
> in the case, which is vaguely proposed on and off, that Social Security will never get the money back from its mythical "lockbox", and instead the money will be retroactively turned into just general-treasury money
Especially in the last Social-Security-reform debate a few years ago, there were serious proposals that the Social Security tax surplus notionally held in bonds will never be repaid to Social Security, and therefore reform proposals should be made which allows SS to be solvent under the assumption that it will never get its bonds repaid.
If that happens, a significant part of the past 20 years' Social-Security tax money will not be used for SS payouts, but will be kept by the general treasury. In that case, SS will retroactively have been, in part, a regressive general-revenue tax.
If 100% of the Soc. Sec. money collected is eventually used to pay Soc. Sec. obligations (i.e. SS is able to call its bonds), then my argument doesn't apply. I'm not confident that will happen, though.