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The Supreme Court: Another Key Player
September 05th 09:37:59 AM
S4 remembers Chief Justice Rehnquist today. His peers paid tribute to him today, describing him as "truly the first among equals in discharging his judicial duties" (Stevens), "one of the great chief justices of the Supreme Court of the United States" (O'Connor), and "a warm, compassionate, decent man; a brilliant jurist; and a chief justice of superb and historic stature" (Kennedy). He will be missed.
The Supreme Court itself has played an integral role in the determination of the constitutionality of payroll taxes. Two cases particularly shaped the history of Social Security: the 1937 case of Helvering v. Davis, and the 1960 case of Flemming v. Nestor. The former determined the constitutionality of payroll taxes to advance the general welfare of the United States, and the latter determined that Social Security benefits are not guaranteed.
That's right. Even after paying into the system for your entire career, you are not guaranteed to receive Social Security benefits. The Flemming Court specifically upheld the "Reservation of Power," section of the bill, which provided for Congress's "...right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision of this Act..." Justice Harlan delivered the opinion of the Court, holding that:
It was doubtless out of an awareness of the need for such flexibility that Congress included in the original Act, and has since retained a clause expressly reserving to it '[t]he right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision' of the Act. That provision makes express what is implicit in the institutional needs of the program...We must conclude that a person covered by the Act has not such a right in benefit payments as would make every defeasance of "accrued" interests violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The implications of the decision rendered by the Flemming Court echo even today; an ailing system that cannot pay promised benefits to today's young workers - and is not obligated to, according to the Court's finding in Flemming - is a troubling one, indeed.
Posted by Erin Robert
Comments
It's way more outrageous that the court even decided social slavery was constitutional to begin with. When they hand down decisions like that, I have to ask what in their opinion do the 9th and 10th amendments actually mean. Could they give an example of a program congress might vote for that would not be in their power to legislate? Based on current court interpretation of the general welfare and interstate commerce clauses, they have rendered the 9th and 10th amendments meaningless.
Posted by Noid on September 05th 04:42:53 PM
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