Labor & Employment Law

?Tenthers? Would Abolish Wage and Child Labor Laws, Social Security, Medicare and More

By Mike Hall

Most cults are a based in some sort of skewed spiritual vision or the worship of a charismatic leader, but there is a reemerging cult that bows down at the feet of the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Many of them want to bring their cultish beliefs to the halls of Congress and are running for election this fall.

They?re called the ?tenthers? and they say federal laws and rules like the minimum wage, Medicare, Social Security, unemployment insurance, the Department of Education, even child labor laws and a laundry list of other federal laws and programs are unconstitutional.

Their rationale?irrationale would be a better word?is that if a federal power is not specifically spelled out in the Constitution, well the government doesn?t have it, according to their view of the 10th amendment.

It?s a view that has long been discredited, but reappears from time to time, such as during FDR?s New Deal era and after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled school segregation unconstitutional in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education.

Here’s Think Progress in today?s Progress Report:

…because the Constitution doesn’t actually use the word education?it instead gives Congress broad authority to spend money to advance the “common defense” and “general welfare”?Senate candidates like Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Sharron Angle (R-Nev.) claim that the federal Department of Education is unconstitutional. That means no federal student loan assistance or Pell Grants for middle class students struggling to pay for college, and no education funds providing opportunities to students desperately trying to break into the middle class.

And that’s hardly the worst news tenthers have in store for young Americans. Alaska GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller wants to declare child labor laws unconstitutional?returning America to the day when ten-year-olds labored in coal mines.

Miller told Dermot Cole of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that he didn?t believe the federal government had any right to establish child labor laws.

I asked him about whether he also believed that federal child labor laws should be done away with.

He said he is not against Social Security, unemployment benefits, the minimum wage or child labor laws.

But he doesn?t want the federal government mandating any of them.

Tenthers believe the states alone should–or more likely, should not–address these issues. Because states are in such financial straights these days, they can?t even pay for the programs, laws and policies already on their books. Hmmm? You don’t think tenthers are counting on that do you?

Click here to read The Progress Report?s in-depth look at the ?tenthers? movement and here for more from Ian Millhiser at The American Prospect.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on October 21, 2010 (boomark / email).