The Railroad Retirement Act

Yah, the RR Retirement Act is history, tossed by SCOTUS in the mid-'30's.

Some interesting obiter dicta, though.

Why did the Railroad Retirement Act decision make people believe the Supreme Court would toss Social Security? Because it was a small-scale version of Social Security. It ordered all railroad workers into a compulsory government pension program funded by a payroll tax apportioned between them and their employers.

The Roosevelt administration argued that the Commerce Clause -- which gives Congress the power to "regulate commerce ... among the several states" -- gave the federal government the power to force railroad companies and workers to fund and participate in a federal retirement program.

The court slapped this down 6-3. Justice Owen J. Roberts -- the Anthony Kennedy of that era -- wrote the opinion. He was joined by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the other swing vote of that time.

Roberts clearly envisioned how the Railroad Retirement Act could open the door to a massive federal welfare state.

"If that question be answered in the affirmative, obviously there is no limit to the field of so-called regulation," wrote Roberts. "The catalogue of means and actions which might be imposed upon an employer in any business, tending to the satisfaction and comfort of his employees, seems endless. Provision for free medical attendance and nursing, for clothing, for food, for housing, for the education of children, and a hundred other matters, might with equal propriety be proposed as tending to relieve the employee of mental strain and worry."

By the way, there were (and remain) serious questions about the Constitutionality of Social Security.