My take is based on what I believe to be the indisputable (by any reasoning individual) fact regarding the guaranteed insolvency and imminent collapse of the current SS system.
With an ever increasing number of people depending on an ever decreasing number in the workforce to support them the system is the equivalent to “a dead man walking”
The only answer is to start every individual entering the workforce in a private plan and give the same option to everyone else based on their being able to allocate a % of their contributions to the private fund depending on age. Ditto Medicare, which is totally broke now, Private health plans are all which will work and the sooner we start new workers on that the sooner the problem will be fixed.
Within 10-15 years there will be no SS or medicare as we see it today. The Left are loathe to see it touched because they claim credit for it so if it is to be changed at all they believe it AMAUST be them who does the changes so they can continue to take credit.
Your claim of the funds being used to buy T-bills makes no sense since now there is NOTHING in any acct anywhere which is comprised of what we call SS funds. The money goes into the general tax fund and is immediately spent, What is left in the “SS trust fund” are IOU’s, promises to pay the money back, which is no different then T-bills except these IOU’s pay no interest.
It is not a claim, it is a fact. The SSTF contains non-market T-bills [redeemable only by the USG] and they are interest bearing. They represent an unfunded liability, which is why the SSTF is included in the $13.1 trillion national debt as part of "Intra-governmental Holdings."
Although I don't support kicking the can down the road, SS is relatively easy to fix. It is really just a matter of arithmetic. You can use a combination of measures including extend the retirement age for full benefits, increase the payroll tax, change the COLA forumla, raise the cap faster than currently is the case, etc. Medicare is much more difficult to fix.