We are so weird about this. We already have national "identifier" - the social security number. Pretty much everyone must use it because of both social security

We are so weird about this. We already have national "identifier" - the social security number. Pretty much everyone must use it because of both social security and taxes, but also due to private use cases. We should just admit this is the case and manage it better. The man-in-woods scenarios where one can opt-out are just not very realistic. Now as a matter of authentication - verifying the identifier, we have left this up to the states in the past, with opt-in federal IDs for various purposes. Though with RealID this is being standardized. Login.gov is a way to have a digital equivalent.