Where's the money?

Into the pot.

No, in reality the money goes out as fast as it comes in, there is no pot of money sitting in Washington, all that sits in the vault are slips of paper with "IOU" written on them.

There are no "IOUs". Look up the SS Trustees' Summary for plenty of info. The trust fund contains Treasury securities that are essentially the same as T-bills except they are not marketable. If those Treasuries are "IOUs", then every T-bill held by every investor also owns an "IOU".

The whole notion of "IOUs" is a republican spin intended to undermine your confidence in the SS System so you will agree to dismantling it.

Congratulations.

'T-bills' are IOU's. Any note you buy is an IOU. You give someone cash, they give you a T-bill which says IOU whatever you paid, plus interest. It is no 'republican lie', it's all based on IOU's.........and China holds a bunch of them.

Yeah, but T-Bill doesn't call to mind a scrap of paper with a scrawled notation "I.O. U. sitting in the bottom of an otherwise empty vault.

It may not 'call it to mind', but it's the same thing. Even a dollar bill is an IOU, backed by nothing more, and worth nothing more, than a promise.

And I recall a Terry Pratchet story involving a 1 cent promisary note. Sounded so much better than postage stamp.