Americans: Pay your taxes—or lose your passport

[dixiegrrrrl]

42. In China, each citizen has a identity card, without which one cannot even take a bus to work.

Doing almost anything requires the card: renting/buying a home, a car, being hired for a job, going to a school, getting medical help/.
and even being allowed to move from one's village to a city, which requires special permission plus the card.

Thus enters the problem of China's Ghost Children, who were born in violation of China's then one child law. Millions of them, hidden away by their parents, uneducated, unemployable, and thus they cannot care for themselves or for their elderly parents, which was one of the reasons parents wanted more than one kid in the first place, for old age security.
To be a legal citizen, Ghost Children must pay impossible large fines, well over 60,000 dollars, which few Chinese make in a lifetime.

Now, with the relaxation of the one child rule, the question arises of what will happen to these Ghost people.

THAT is how a law aimed at reducing population evolved over time to create non-citizens in China.

Laws of "Gov't approved ID" passed post 9-11 have pushed people to obtain passports even for internal country use.

Using the passport to collect taxes follows on the heels of allowing Gov. to take one's Soc; Sec. to collect on college loans.
Very slippery slope.