I'm with you down to here:

Social Security is PAYGO on its own functions direct transfer between the current generations paying in and the generation(s) receiving payment. Since the 1980's, it also collects a surplus on top to shift the tax burden from progressive corporate income taxes to regressive payroll taxes.

I would have preferred that SS surpluses were "banked", probably invested in the US stock markets in an index fund.  It was a little late, but both Clinton and Bush suggested programs that would have started doing that (I prefer Clinton's).  But our wimpy leaders, particularly Congress, have always "kicked the can down the road" until forced to do something.  But SS is what it is, what we've made it, and the leaders that we've elected have done--both sides of the aisle, liberals and conservatives.  There are no heroes here.

And yes it pushes the burden down to the younger generations, particularly with the baby boom bulge getting ready to retire.

But as the article I quoted points out, SS is just not regressive.  I think it's even worse than the article points out, since the higher wage earners have their SS payment deducted from their earnings; then they pay the higher federal (and state) income taxes on that money they didn't get; then they get 60% of the money they put in; and they pay taxes again on that 60%.  If you do the math on that at a 35% tax rate, it shows they lost their entire SS contributions--40% they just don't get, and the 60% they do get got eaten up by the two tax bites.  I'm not crying for the high income earners here,,,I'm very comfortable with this redistribution of income.  I just don't like people pretending it's a regressive tax that benefits the high income earners--that's just not true.

If you are also suggesting the rest of the budget should be balanced over the years, I agree with that.  There are a number of ways that could have been achieved--lower government spending, higher personal income taxes, higher corporate income tax, more excize taxes, etc. etc.  I don't agree with your choice of a higher corporate tax, because of the economics arguement that you are taxing the money twice.  The corporation pays money on the earnings, and then what is distributed as dividends (as opposed to reinvested in "real assets" <snark> in the business), is taxed again.

So we double tax social security as I showed above (which I agree with as social policy), we double tax with the "death tax" (which I agree with as social policy as long as the levels are adjusted upward, which i expect will be the compromise in 2010), and we double tax corporate earnings (which I don't agree with, not on the basis of social policy, but on the basis of not allowing free markets to operate to the overall benefit of our society).