[idoh]

It's "looting" in that from the outside looking in, when social security has a surplus, the federal government takes that money and spends it on non-related things. Internally, one part of the government is writing an IOU to another part to make it seem like the money is "invested". So from some super technical and pedantic sense, the surplus is invested, but it is only ever invested in internal IOUs from the same entity to which it belongs, it's not like social security is buying up equity or real estate for the long term.

[lotsofpulp]

Are you suggesting that the US government use social security taxes to purchase equities and real estate?

The purpose of the current system is to make the benefits one receives sort of proportional to the income they earn. Of course it's the government taking in money and spending it, and it's all one government if you zoom out, but it's still useful to categorize certain funds.

[idoh]

Well, I could live with either taking the surplus from that specific program and investing it in the best possible way to cover for well-known coming shortfalls, or saying that it is a generic tax like any other tax. Then at least people would know where it stands.

Instead we have a weird situation where the tax specifically calls out social security, but in reality gets spent on a bunch of unrelated things, with a thin veneer of technicality to make it all hold together.