"Try holding a good job with a lousy FICO score. Try keeping any job with no transportation, housing, or hope of procuring any."
Actually, not.
Because the court system cannot process 40 million repossessions, and the bank or IRS do not simply GET your house and car. They have to go through the courts to get it. Fight them there, right now, where it's just bankruptcies, and it takes a year or two. Toss another 40 million cases, and it will take bank and government decades to be able to take ANYTHING.
Of course the tension would not last that long.
Because, as France demonstrates, if millions of people directly defy the government, the government will cave every single time. It has no power if people won't obey it anymore.
You would be amazed at how fast a tax court judge can approve a notice of levy and seizure. I have seen it done in thirty seconds.
The ball's in your court at that point, because the IRS will grab everything and sell it off before you get out of the courtroom (assuming you're there in the first place).
Fight them there, right now, where it's just bankruptcies, and it takes a year or two. Toss another 40 million cases, and it will take bank and government decades to be able to take ANYTHING.
Ever hear the phrase "Possession is nine points of the law?" Once they execute a seizure, you have zero assets to pay for a lawyer--assuming one will take a sure-lose case of not paying your taxes. Also note that Congress can change the laws under which one contests tax cases in ways not favorable to you.