> How is that better than just funding it from the general fund as a welfare wealth transfer?
Its a wealth transfer regardless of how what you name the pockets the funds pass through on the way to effecting it, another rotation of the names is irrelevant to the function of the solution. The issue is where you get the money (through additional revenue, reduced other spending, or additional debt) to pay for the stabilization, and I think additional revenue in roughly this manner is one of the better ways to do this (I'm actually fine with stopping calling it a separate tax and fund, rolling this tax into income tax, and also making the income tax apply to all income, including capital gains, gifts, and inheritances, equally, and also allowing both voluntary recognition of income for tax purposes in advance of earning/realization and allowing certain taxable events -- especially isolated capital gains windfalls and inheritances -- to be recognized for tax purposes over a period of several years after they occur, but that's getting farther and farther off the immediate topic of funding of Social Security, though the whole set of ideas is interconnected though they aren't all strictly dependent on each other.)
Its a wealth transfer regardless of how what you name the pockets the funds pass through on the way to effecting it, another rotation of the names is irrelevant to the function of the solution. The issue is where you get the money (through additional revenue, reduced other spending, or additional debt) to pay for the stabilization, and I think additional revenue in roughly this manner is one of the better ways to do this (I'm actually fine with stopping calling it a separate tax and fund, rolling this tax into income tax, and also making the income tax apply to all income, including capital gains, gifts, and inheritances, equally, and also allowing both voluntary recognition of income for tax purposes in advance of earning/realization and allowing certain taxable events -- especially isolated capital gains windfalls and inheritances -- to be recognized for tax purposes over a period of several years after they occur, but that's getting farther and farther off the immediate topic of funding of Social Security, though the whole set of ideas is interconnected though they aren't all strictly dependent on each other.)