As many have said in the past, including Ron Paul, fences erected on our borders to supposedly keep people out, can also be used to keep us from leaving. This could be taken literally, but fences can also take different forms.
The Senate has just recently passed S. 1813, a monstrous Senate Bill to “reauthorize Federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes.” In this bill is a provision that will allow the government to revoke or refuse to grant a passport to any American citizen who has certain unpaid taxes, or is delinquent in his tax payments. That delinquency is now set at $50,000 dollars, but this slope is slippery. Section 40304 of this legislation states:
‘‘SEC. 4. AUTHORITY TO DENY OR REVOKE PASSPORT. 25 ‘‘(a) INELIGIBILITY.—
23:06 Mar 19, 2012
1451 ‘‘(1) ISSUANCE.—Except as provided under
subsection (b), upon receiving a certification de- scribed in section 7345 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 from the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of State may not issue a passport or passport card to any individual who has a seriously delinquent tax debt described in such section.
‘‘(2) REVOCATION.—The Secretary of State shall revoke a passport or passport card previously issued to any individual described in subparagraph (A).
Should this pass the House and be signed into law by the president, it would take effect in January of 2013.
When civil unrest becomes evident, when the economy substantially worsens, when police state tactics become widespread, those who can will want to leave the country, taking their own assets with them. This is a normal response of any prudent individual, but with laws in place to revoke or deny passports, we can literally be held captive in our own country.
If this can be passed into law, regardless of the amount of delinquent tax specified today, that amount can easily be changed. It might be $50,000 dollars now, but what if that amount is lowered in the future? What if government and the IRS dramatically raise tax rates in the future? What if they disallow any to leave with any private assets?
Taxpayers do not have to be charged with tax evasion or any other crime in order for their passport to be revoked, there only has to be a lien or levy filed by the IRS. It is a guilty before innocent scenario, so just the say so of the IRS is enough to trigger this denial. Can anyone imagine trusting the IRS?
There are many ways other than physical fences to lock people inside their own borders, but in this country, many options are on the table, including fences. This attempt to sneak this legislation through the system is telling, in that those “representatives” of the people are continually tightening the grip on our ability to move. Without the ability for us to go where we freely choose to, then we become nothing more than slaves. This legislation will remove one more link in the chain already around our neck, and will add one more fence to climb!