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Labor & Employment Law

: AFL-CIO NOW BLOG

Alaska?s Miller Claims Minimum Wage is Unconstitutional. Really

By Mike Hall

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We?ve heard some wacky things this election season. And then again, we have some wacky candidates. But Joe Miller, the tea party/Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Alaska gets this week?s ?You?re kidding me, right?? prize for going on national television and saying the federal minimum wage is unconstitutional.

Apparently in Miller?s?shall we be kind and just say ?different??view of the U.S. Constitution, if the founding fathers didn?t write a minimum wage amendment, then by gads the federal government has no right to impose one. That?s why Miller also says unemployment insurance, Social Security, the Department of Education and raft of other well-accepted government programs and policies are an assault on and abomination of the Constitution.

But if there?s not a Bush tax cut for the rich amendment in the Constitution….?

Incredibly, Miller is not the only Republican who?s decided that along with repealing health care, privatizing Social Security and keeping the Bush tax cuts for the rich, the minimum wage is another evil that needs a stake driven through its heart.

We?ve got Connecticut?s Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon who last week said Congress should consider lowering the minimum wage. National Journal?s Hotline points out that Republican Senate candidates in West Virginia and Washington State have taken shots at that dastardly $7.25 an hour.

Businessman John Raese?has been most adamant in opposing the minimum wage–even though West Virginia has a large blue-collar population. Raese has also flat-out called for eliminating the minimum wage.

In Washington, Republican Dino Rossi has a checkered history on the minimum wage. Rossi has?espoused positions from the Washington Policy Center which included blocking increasing the minimum wage.

Stay tuned, I?m sure we?ll be hearing more strange noises from somewhere beyond the mainstream.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on October 04, 2010 (boomark / email).