TIA = TMI

[live love laugh]

People who owe child support cannot get passports. I don't think that the goverment should be this invasive, but then, I am a LIBERAL.

I don't owe child support nor is it due me, but I think that this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to restrictions that will be placed on us by TIA (aka The Patriotic Act).

[4_TN_TITANS]

1. Does this not make sense?

Once out of the country, would someone owing be out of reach of U.S. authorities? I'd imagine a move out of the country would be cheaper than paying if someone had let it slide for too long.

Are you against children getting the benefits of support from both parties?

edit to add:

I don't agree with the amounts that I've seen people saddled with by courts, but it's the price people pay for the decision.

[Captain Angry]

4. I think the point is that it's a pretty low bar.

There are a whole lot of people doing far worse things that should disqualify them from traveling. We call them Republicans. But most of them have no problem getting a passport.

Today child support. It sounds worthy, which reduces any pushback. Tomorrow it could be outstanding student loans in excess of X. Or it could be a ban from travel for being arrested once in the 60's for sitting in peacefully.

Etc.

[live love laugh]

7. You said it far better than I was able to. I see governments--both

federal and local--becoming more and more invasive.

Just last night I was talking to friends who told me that in Chicago and surrounding suburbs cops have been seen patrolling the streets in virtual gangs looking to catch drivers in order to write no-seatbelt tickets.

Are they doing that for the safety of the drivers or for revenue? And are we, as the taxpayers, getting what we pay for in protection from the police force when they do this?

The mind boggles...

[MADem]

2. People who don't pay their bills oughtn't to be travelling willy-nilly, or

escaping their duty to their children by fleeing to some shoddy country with less onerous regulations. And more than a few of those deadbeats are the "kidnap junior and spirit him away to a non-extraditable nation to be raised by grandma in a hellhole" type situation.

Pay up and get the passport, that's my take on it.

If you can afford airline tickets, passport filing fees, and so on, you can afford to pay for the support of the children you helped to produce.

I really don't have sympathy for deadbeats. The ones who suffer are the kids.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. I knew several men in AZ who have lost their driver's licenses because they owed support...

made it awfully difficult for them to keep a job and catch back up on payments.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. It's not about child support.

It's about control of the populace.

[Ohio Joe]

6. I work in Child Support

You would be shocked at what people do to get out of paying child support. I'm proud of the things I've done here (I work in MIS) to catch dead beat dads and get them paying. I say fuck em, they leave their kids and don't pay, they deserve what they get.