Comments on: More passport outrage

By: David E..

David E.. — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:36:18 +0000

I think what this means is don’t elect people who don’t believe in government. If they don’t believe you get Katrina’s everywhere you look. Why get upset about passports? That is nothing compared with not funding biometric driver licenses. These people are not serious about doing a good job.

By: hap

hap — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 19:11:52 +0000

Re Em on Health Care: You speak as if the government doesn’t already have its paws all over health care….

It could be a lot more heavy handed, let me tell you.�

By: Francis St-Pierre

Francis St-Pierre — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 18:07:06 +0000

This reminds me of the days poor soviet citizens had to wait in line to receive an old piece of disgusting bread to eat.

We’re lucky the government isn’t in the business of distributing food yet.

By: KAZ

KAZ — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 16:06:41 +0000

Well now, few people despise the inherent inefficiency and harm of authoritarian government more than I, but in this case your math is off, a bit.

They were expecting 17 million passports, a “forty percent increase”, and added 200 people, not counting retirees. That means the retirees could, to reasonably simplify, need to process forty percent of seventeen million (6.8 million, I think).

That means that they could work 8 hours per day, 365 days per year, and have to process almost 12 per hour.

Of course they don’t work 365 days per year…they get more days off than any actual, productive members of society in the private sector, and if they’re like the Federal agencies I worked with as a consultant in DC, they also are lucky if they get in 6 hours of “work” per day, not counting how inefficient they are within that 6 hours, thanks to meetings, daily progress reports, and other bureaucratic nitwittery.

And, actually, one would HOPE (if we accept the premise of the need for this kind of security, which is arguable) that they take more than 5 minutes per passport (12 per hour), anyway. I mean, this is National Security, they’re saving us from the million new terrorists that Bush created by invading Iraq.

Of course almost all of the 9-11 attackers (members of Al Qaeda, who considered Saddam Hussein a mortal enemy) had legitimate passports/visas into the US, so in reality all this does is inconvenience 6.8 million additional law-abiding people (and bring the Federal government a billion dollars in fees), establishing a more authoritarian government without even gaining more temporary safety for the liberty lost.

But, anyway, your math was way off. And then you said “20 hours” instead of “16 hours”, when you summed up later in the paragraph.

By: John Spaulding

John Spaulding — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 16:06:18 +0000

Thank heavens the Immigration bill just went down in flames. We would have been counting on the Feds to enforce the penalties of that, too.

Just proves that every now and then there is an outbreak of good sense.�

By: hapmoorii

hapmoorii — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 15:57:51 +0000

Unbelievable that they would change the policy at this juncture. The damage has already been done, hasn’t it? So now we’re to believe there was no reason for it…no real national security issue at hand. If there were, why do they so casually drop the requirement?

Still waiting for my passport filed for in mid-February so we can continue our adoption paperwork…

By: jay

jay — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:52:20 +0000

The whole passport thing is so the government can take in more money. Seventeen million times the cost of a passport is quite a bit of money. Of course the government will waste it somewhere.

By: Mike Dodge

Mike Dodge — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:48:35 +0000

17 million additional passports at at least $100 each is $1.7 billion. You certainly could hire more than 200 extra employees with that additional income.

Makes sense, which is probably why it wasn’t done.�

By: Javier

Javier — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:05:30 +0000

I heard reported this morning(6/8) on my local news radio station that the gov’t is relaxing its policy on passports for travel to Canada, Mexico and the Carribbean. Sorry to say, however, that no such deal is being made for travel to Europe and Asia.

By: Regina W

Regina W — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 13:55:14 +0000

Apparently the government has gotten a lot of complaints and they're now suspending the requirement that passport be in-hand to re-enter the US...a receipt you've applied, along with the old rules birth certificate or driver's license will suffice to get you back into the United States. Feds to Suspend Border Passport Rule