https://www.nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2015/presidents-...
We can no longer afford that. Government pensions should be abolished and the retirement age raised.
that's the problem with mixing social security and medicare in with the rest of the "general budget items"... it's specifically built to be a self-funding program and people have been paying taxes for decades (regardless of whether you think the government has mismanaged it) with the expectation of receiving the benefit.
(note that nowhere here have I said "lockbox", I am firmly aware that it's a "pay as you go" concern at the end of the day, and it's irrelevant to this point, which regards the human factor.)
In contrast, let's say the military is not specifically funded with any specific tax that was intended to go towards that program. It's just something we spend money on. That's what a general budget item is, and that's where the general budget largely gets spent. Medicare/social security are handled differently.