Joe Miller: Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional
Unemployment benefits, Social Security and Medicare are not constitutional, according to the man likely to win the Republican Senate nomination in Alaska.
Joe Miller currently leads Sen. Lisa Murkowski in a bid to become the next Republican candidate for Senator of Alaska. In July, ABC News reported that Miller believed Democrats' attempts to extend unemployment benefits weren't "constitutionally authorized."
ABC News' Rick Klein reports: Tea Party-backed Senate candidate Joe Miller today added his voice to those who are critical of Democrats' efforts to expand unemployment insurance, and went even further than most candidates in saying that federally backed compensation to the unemployed isn't "constitutionally authorized."
“The unemployment compensation benefits have gotten -- first of all, it's not constitutionally authorized,” Miller, R-Alaska, said on ABC/Washington Post’s “Top Line.” “I think that’s the first thing that's gotta be looked at, so I do not favor their extension.”
On Sunday, the candidate questioned the constitutionality of even more government benefits.
"You have also taken some fairly controversial -- some would say very extreme -- positions," CBS' Bob Schieffer told Miller Sunday. "First you say you want to phase out Medicare. You want to privatize Social Security. I have to say there are a lot of people in Alaska who are on Medicare and are getting Social Security. Isn't that position going to be a problem for you in the election, in this general election?" asked Schieffer.
"I would suggest to you that if one thinks that the Constitution is extreme then you would also think that the founders are extreme," answered Miller.
"We just simply want to get back to basics. Restore essentially the constitutional foundation of our country," he said.
"This means the federal government becoming less onerous, less involved in basically every item of our lives. And what that means is there does have to be some transition."
Someone ought to inform these whackjobs it's not 1788 anymore.
Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, et al, would no doubt concur with Miller's opinion.
it's all of these insane morons that are the real
death bed supporters....what idiot would vote them
in knowing that the only medical assistance or income
they have like medicare and social security will be
gone and they will have voted themselves out
on their own homes onto the streets without any of the
basics they now have.......shelter, food and medical.
just dumbass idiots from the go........and if you follow
sharon engle's rationale.......it's god's will they be this stupid ! ! !
He's going to be fun, but such easy pickings.
I almost forgot that he's a Palin nominee. Ever more fun!
states that are non contiguous to the rest of the country? Or buying land from Czars?
"That's fu*#ing retarded."
Big City Mayor
Or French Emperors.
'Talk to the hand'
from Mexican Generalissimos. Suck on that Santy Annie.
"That's fu*#ing retarded."
Big City Mayor
or Hawaii Kings.
Eminent Domain on a grand scale.
'Talk to the hand'
'Brainiac.' He obviously thinks he's smarter than everyone to have ever come before him.
me-oww!
joe's education came when he made
thru a complete comic book.
a masters in finance from somewhere. I lost interest pretty quickly, as he seems like a preprogramed dimwit. He probably wrote the entry himself.
Geez. He's memorized a bunch of talking points that sound good only if you are not any kind of critical thinker. And each of those points will benefit some corporation somewhere.
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
They're both essentially insurance policies, and as conservative as Texas is they require you to have insurance to legally drive.
They also both fall under Article I, Sec 8, cl 3, as well as the Necessary and Proper clause, and Amendment XIV Equal Protection clause.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
and Medicare and have nothing to do with any deficit. They could look at least a tiny bit embarrassed when they lie about them being "entitlements" and their affecting the deficit. A slight blush--a small smirk. Anything. Practiced liars. They need a reckoning.
Don't they need a rectum first?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
.
Maybe Miller should get a clue and remember what happened to Goldwater in 1964--he got beat by a huge margin because of his less then moderate views. But I'm sure these arrogant political idiots could care less.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
This cannot be a real crowd pleaser, can it?
So who is he talking to?
Surely it's to the corporations who seem to be the only entities on earth who hate these government programs.
Does he think the Koch brothers will bestow their wealth on him if he touts their line?
MyMy
tea-baggers in office? Who has the power (money) to fix elections for them? Who are the Koch brothers?
made Franny McDormand a household word?
And didn't you claim you were leavering an hour ago?
"That's fu*#ing retarded."
Big City Mayor
Besides this, I mean.
If Alaska doesn't want federal money, screw 'em.
Wow! This guy has already mastered the art of broad generalization. he should do well with Alaskan Repugs.
'Talk to the hand'
Does his love of the constitution also remove the $3500 subsidy check from the oil companies?
But, hey, that thar's our's moneys.
a hot bed of teabaggery. Shame on you!
Alaska secessionist? A "just let us be by ourselves and Sarah can negotiate everything with the oil companies" and, after the oil's gone, ask for reparations from the States.
Paul C
Hey, if they wanna secede, good riddance.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Hopefully we as citizens stand up harder for Medicare and Social Security than we did the Bill of Rights. Cause these boys want to take away everything. They aren't stopping.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
I am so sick and tired of these jackasses like miller, angle, and beck. Sometimes I wish we were a commie nation so we could throw these jerks in jail. They are un-American, and I strongly question whether or not they are even human.
I wonder if joe the jerkoff thinks it's constitutional to fund highway projects, police, firemen?
Jesus F. H. Christ I'm sick of them!
is it constitutional, joe, when
your state gets $5.76 back from the
US govt for every $1 you sent........
maybe we should cut off the Alaskan welfare
we are paying.
A commenter on the DMN blog questioned the federal government's involvement in the interstate highway system.
Hello...never heard of interstate commerce?
He tried to claim the Article I, Sec 8, cl 7 only authorized the creation of post roads. But that only makes the mail limited to federal power, to connect post offices, and does not mention the creation of roads in general for or against. And of course that would presume they could prognosticate the need for roads some 150 years before the mass production of cars, or the first experimental ones in France and Germany.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
You are not alone General Jack D..Sad to say they won't be going away anytime soon .
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all."
As though a group of people who started a freaking REVOLUTION weren't extreme.
Most of them can't even read...
For a second there I thought you meant the Founding Fathers...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I'll wager a week's pay that this fellow is a member of a "Free and Independent Alaska" group. The don't want any Federal benefits or controls over Alaska's affairs...
but they do want Federal welfare and lots of it.
Study the symptoms not the virus...
From Alaska doesn't comprehend what "promote the general Welfare" means.
To MY mind, it means IMPROVE on the Constitution, and for "we, the people" NOT make it less than as written.
so that the general can get his welfare check.
Duuuh. It is clistar clear!
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
brain is on the fritz today...
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
Of a Bugs Bunny cartoon starring Daffy Duck hawking on the streets by trying to sell a "Joe Miller Joke Book". Perfect, 'cause Joe Miller is a joke.
Wasn't it Alaska that used federal dollars they earmarked for a Bridge to Nowhere?
My great great great great uncle must be rolling rolling rolling in his grave.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
that question would have been answered years ago. If corporation get rid of social security and medicare what do they think will happen next? I think we become a lot more socialist than we are now. And the unions will be reborn and they will be alot more angrier. I suggest the corporations and the wealthy should take what they have now and be happy before they push us to the tipping point and lose everything.
"I would suggest to you that if one thinks that the Constitution is extreme then you would also think that the founders are extreme," answered Miller.
The founders were extreme. They revolted against a standing government and fought a war that went on for several years in order to become a seperate independent nation. That's some hardcore extreme.
Let's see how far to the right they go before they fall off of the edge of this flat world.
During the Boston Tea Party, people, including Sam Adams, disguised themselves as Indians, dumped a monopolistic, exploitative corporation's tea into the Boston harbor.
There is no rational conclusion that can be made except that these people were terrorists. They were the real deal: guerrilla tactics, targeting officers, burning down NYC, marauding Tories and their homes, using informants, spies and black ops.
I'm not sure I'm doing a good job of explaining how the founding fathers are much different from today's military industrial complex, unless one considers that in the interim, these terrorists decided to establish a government that might have sought to prevent future terrorists and the causes of terrorism. In other words, they intended to produce a government that would defeat terrorism by never allowing its seeds to germinate.
Of course, this argument may be buying into the hype that the Founding Fathers were better than George Bush, and that the true purposes of the Revolution and the Constitution was something more than a land grab and with it all the power by the aristocrats.
The colonists' objection to the Tea Tax was not that it was imposed and had to be paid, but that the British East India Company was exempted from paying it. And the shareholders in the Company included the nobles in Parliament and King George himself. It was as much (maybe even more) a protest against corporatism as against taxation.
the Cat Comestible Committee if he wins. You need more Republicans to make the argument that SS is best fixed by dismantling it.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
"We just simply want to get back to basics. Restore essentially the constitutional foundation of our country," he said.
So I guess he's strongly in favor of abolishing the nuclear family and having all the generations live together? Because that's the "basic" family unit in play at the time of the Constitution's writing, and it's the only way that abolishing Social Security and Medicare is gonna work. If you don't want millions of senior citizens dying of hunger and homelessness, that is. If you're the type who doesn't give a shit about whether old people have anything to eat, then of course Miller's plan is peachy keen.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Joe Miller wants to kill Grandma!!!
Actually, the Supreme Court has ruled many times, beginning in 1937, that Social Security is constitutional.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/court.html
Teatards are idiots...
you mean the teabuggers and not the TEA Party, right?
because after watching glenn beck, i would say the Tea Party, as in the the teabuggers, are more about god, guns, and country, especially the "this is a christian nation" crowd with a lot of pious chest thumping about being true patriots, than the original TEA Party people of 2008. so let's call them what they are and not what they want to be referred to, the teabaggers, because they are no way at this time the TEA Party.
Just curious, Joe ... What was the Founding Fathers' take on airports subsidies and financing of NASA ?
He's one of those asshats who claims that a "literal" interpretation of the Constitution means that anything that is not specifically allowed is forbidden and that anything that is not specifically forbidden is mandatory. Well if that's the case, the second amendment allows gun ownership only by members of (government)-regulated militias. Murder isn't specifically forbidden, either, nor are mail fraud, prostitution or child pornography, yet all of these can involve prosecution at the federal level.
corporations being treated as people?
i would love that.
but then that would mean some sort of governmental involvement to set things right, so it all kind of turns in on itself as a catch-22.
I think The Onion wrote about Joe in Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be
I wonder how Joe feels about the constitutionality of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend? Alaska is clearly the most genuinely socialist state in the Union.
Well folks , lets hope this "question " never gets to the Supreme court .
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all."
Can anyone tell me if Mr. Miller ever actually stated his case why Medicare or Social Security were unconstitutional?
Somehow I doubt Bob Schieffer ever pressed him.
I can understand that whack job, brain dead opportunists could use ideas like this to foment opposition to the status quo in order to gain support. What bothers me is the large number of idiots out there that not only cannot connect the dots, but don't even know the dots exist. Sure, the founding fathers were extremists, but they were progressive extremists. They did not start a Revolution in order to return to the good old 1500's!
Yeah, let's give up Social Security and Medicare. We want to return to the good old days, when there was no middle class and poverty stricken people starved to death during economic downturns, when the cycles were more frequent and severe. I can understand why people are upset, but FGS, when are they going to use their brain cells to understand the real reasons for their problems and figure out the unthinkable consequences to their "solutions"..
Yeah, there's enough idiots in Alaska( they elected Palin) to elect this piece of shit as their senator and they'll get just what they deserve and that is, a fuck wad who will fuck Alaskan's to death!
Course he comes from the land where people are snow blind and can't see straight, except for when their gas dividend check comes in.
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