How has the government successfully run SS?

The Boomers were already more than funding their intergenerational SS obligations; a common sense argument was made, as follows: "There are more of you, and there is going to be a problem funding SS in the future, so we must sucharge tax you now in order to pay for that easily predictable coming rainy day."

And then, they did surcharge tax the Boomers, and then they did immediately spend the surcharge surplus, replacing it with bonds that might as well have been printed by a secretary every month using a laser printer and placed in a drawer marked "Look, here is documentation of how poorly we have planned for the coming easily predictable coming rainy day; we not only took away almost 10% of payroll from the middle class, so they could less ably plan for their own pension needs, but we immediately spent that 10% long ago, and all that is left is the heating value of these printed certificates in these drawers, documenting our tribal insanity."

1] The Boomers were surcharge taxed an almost extra 10% of payroll for their entire productive working lives, so that their children would not be burdened by an -additional- easily predictable demographic burden. That was the argument to 'save' SS.

2] That surcharge surplus was immediately spent, long ago.

3] The only -two- things that have been projected into the future was the original easily predictable burden, now as unfunded as it was when it was used as a slick excuse to overtax a generation, and the very real hole left in the existing federal budget that was once subsidized by raiding the no longer raidable SS Trust fund... That hole is filled either by new taxes or new borrowing...

The way the government does not default on SS is now to raise taxes on the Boomers kids a second time, to pay not only for their normal intergenerational burden, but the once easily predictable overburden based on the Boomer demographic.

To this day, folks don't understand this. You can still hear people refer to all the 'interest' that those bonds generate for the government...paid by the government to the government! As if 'interest' grew on the 'interest' tree...

This has not been hidden. Just...widely accepted by us all, with blank, barely comprehending stares. mainly because we can't believe our government would do something so monumentally stupid to multiple generations.