No payroll tax for a few months, said Trump, to help folks during the pandemic. Trump added he might end the payroll tax forever, funding Social Security and Medicare by other means. This is a lethal knife to Social Security’s heart because the payroll tax funding stream is Social Security’s aorta. How so? Payroll taxes go to the Social Security Trust fund, nowhere else (yes, reserves are invested in government bonds that help fund other government programs, but these interest-bearing IOUs, again, are obligated to Social Security, period).
Get rid of the payroll tax and Social Security has to fight for tax dollars every year in the government-wide budget scrum. Military needs critical this year? That could mean fewer dollars for the Social Security Trust fund, better luck next year. That’s not even counting the president moving money around an “emergency.” Need money for that border wall? Why look at all that cash Social Security (and Medicare) has! Trump’s payroll tax moves are Social Security poison planted by a stealth assassin hawking how good the potion tastes.