[crushkerry]

Pat Hynes is a Freeper (screen name Kerry Crusher) who is on leave from his job as with a national GOP campaign consulting firm (where he has been involved in numerous House and Senate GOP campaigns) to work for the CATO Institute on helping social security reform pass. At CATO he is a “campaign manager” of sorts for their press, lobbying and public affairs effort, which includes using the power of the online community to get the message out.

He is also the proprietor of www.anklebitingpundits.com (formerly www.crushkerry.com)

[crushkerry]

Ping

[Bahbah]

helping social security reform pass.

May his efforts be blessed.

[middie]

It's been several years since I endured my one and only tax course in law school, but as I recall (without looking at the case in my office), the case involved an immigrant who was deported during the communist scare era. He claimed an entitlement to social security from the Eastern Bloc country to which he was deported.

I doubt that the Supreme Court's language affirming his non-entitlement would, or could, be applied in today's context that have facts disparate from that case. The axiom is true that: "hard cases make bad law." The Nestor case was probably fact driven and would not be binding authority in today's Court.

There's no doubt that Congress can change the terms of the Act's application. But, in my opinion, the substantive entitlement would be upheld by the Court with the Congress being instructed in the concept of invidiousness. It's impossible to predict how the remedy would be shaped, but for sure there would be a remedy that would preserve the underlying benefits.