Demographics are the killer here. A system that works beautifully with a 5:1 worker to beneficiary ratio will become a smoking pile of wreckage at 2:1.
but those benefits will be financed by taxes future workers will pay
Not only can you not depend on benefits not backed up by money invested, from present employees.
You cannot depend on how many future employees there will be.
For that matter what future employees are able to pay.
The money must be confiscated from present employees for future benefits otherwise there is no time for those funds to grow to the size needed in the future.
Unfortunately as you have stated, we have been overcome by demographics, without the funds in the bank and the time to recover.
Can you imagine the screams of agony if the dems were to come clean and tell the American people exactly what they have done. First they squandered billions in the housing debacle, and now they need to tell the public that SS is dead for the next ten to twenty years. I can’t wait, and I didn’t mean to leave out Republicans who are also responsible.