For a Yale-educated lawyer, Joe Miller has some strange ideas about the constitution. He was on radio show today, and ThinkProgress called in to ask him about his position on Social Security. Here's the exchange:
MILLER: When you start to receive some sort of commitment from government in exchange for a payment that you’ve made, there are reciprocal responsibilities; there is an expectation of payment on the part of the person that’s paid into it. And it’s gotten us into this quandary, where government is into something that it shouldn’t have gotten into. Now we’ve got a whole generation of people that are dependent on it, plus we have others that are getting ready to enter into the Social Security payment system, and they are, they simply don’t have time to transition out of it. [...]
QUESTION: What about for me? I’m 32 years old. Is Social Security constitutional for me?
MILLER: Social Security should be transitioned into a program, there’s no question about it, that will allow either the states, or the private entities — whatever the dialogue, I think, results in — to provide payments to you. It is ultimately the government’s responsibility to follow the mandates of the Constitution.
As Millhiser says in the post "it’s difficult to count the errors in Miller’s statement." Were Social Security actually unconstitutional, then continuing to provide benefits under the current system would be unconstitutional. That's just the way it works--it applies equally to all of us. Millhiser continues:
More importantly, his suggestion that Social Security violates the “mandates of the Constitution” is flat out wrong. Had Miller actually bothered to read the Constitution, he would know that Congress has the power to “to lay and collect taxes” and to “provide for the…general welfare of the United States.” That’s exactly what Social Security does.
Finally, his two alternatives to Social Security would both be a disaster. Miller’s proposal to turn Social Security over to state governments is economically impossible unless America forbids its citizens from retiring in a different state than the one that they paid taxes in while working. Likewise, privatization would impose significant new risks on seniors, while creating new administrative costs and forcing benefit reductions. Yet despite being a riskier, less beneficial program for seniors, it also will cost more money than the present system....
It's also worth noting that the Supreme Court has never taken Miller's view of Social Security seriously. The justices upheld Social Security in a pair of 1937 decisions shortly after it became law.
I think Yale may want to take that degree back.