The amount taken in includes Social Security tax revenue which is added to the general fund and which is redeemable by trust bonds which are effectively nothing more than IOUs.
There is not enough money for Social Security, the military and interest on national debt along with all other obligations. There’s just not enough and this is the reason the federal government is running a massive deficit and has been for many many years. But this is another story.
In 1913 the Income Tax and the Federal Reserve Act were enacted for reciprocal purposes. The US Income Tax has always been a domain of the Federal Reserve with Treasury acting as facilitator and enforcer. And indeed the long term agreement has always been that tax revenues will first be allocated to interest payments.
But that’s not possible without raising the debt ceiling in light of Social Security payments.
If you are a politician and you have the option of paying the interest and avoiding default AND letting Social Security recipients go hungry and cold with winter coming,
OR
paying Social Security to avoid starvation and freezing AND defaulting on debt which will throw international finance, banking and bond markets into a death spiral, the choice is for today to raise the debt ceiling meaning go into more debt.
Tomorrow is a different story. Americans face a day of reckoning. But it will always devolve into a class warfare battle because the only way to dig out of this morass besides massively cutting government is to reform entitlements, meaning austerity.
But austerity measures translate to continue letting criminal bankers and financial con artists go scot free and letting develop a hostile response to the “Let them eat cake” wealthy class. Class warfare is a given.
One credible way out is to buy enough time to let FairTax enactment boost GDP in its first year by 10% and continue growing year over year until the deficit is eliminated, combined with entitlement reform.
Another way out that is complementary to the above is to pass Mark Levin’s Liberty Amendments.
Or, better yet, simply start supporting and defending the Constitution we’ve already got, staying well within the Enumerated Powers. Problem solved.