No I don’t think this is right either. With the boomer generation, SS always had a surplus: more being collected than paid out. Govt financial shenanigans issued debt to let other parts of the govt borrow this “surplus”. However now that the pool of workers paying in is much smaller than retired folk getting paid, that surplus is rapidly turning into deficit: it needs to payout more than it collects.

There’s never been a “fund”, never been “savings”, there’s nothing to “steal”. However SS can no longer meet its commitments (in ten years) so something needs to change