Lindsay Graham and Chuck Shomer want a national ID card with biometric information on it in order to prevent illegal aliens from working in the United States. It is a good goal making sure all workers are legal citizens or carry the proper working papers. Yet, it’s government we’re talking about here. So, as usual the plan is rife with ignorance, costs, suppression of freedom, and all the other bad stuff that comes with government. In my last blog I wrote about the control that would occur with the national I.D. card. Today, let’s study the cost. And then I’ll give you my idea. Read on.

Let’s look at the new bureaucracy that would be required to issue a national ID card. Let’s assume that there are three hundred million people in the United States. Let’s also assume that the government won’t stop themselves with only “registering” “workers.” Everybody, worker or non-worker, will be required to have one. It wouldn’t work otherwise. A person could claim not to be a worker, not get a card, work for cash like a ton of illegal aliens do, and dodge the system. I know, I know, who would have thunk it? Anyway back to the analysis. No let’s assume that it will take fifteen minutes of government bureaucracy to issue a card. That is probably an estimate lite but I’ll run with it. Fifteen minutes per application will take seventy-five million hours. Assuming a forty hour work week and a fifty week work year, that is two thousand hours per worker per year. Now assuming this, we divide two thousand into seventy five million and we get the number of additional government workers we need. The number is, drum roll, 37,500 new employees. Wait, these are the employees actually signing folks up. They need managers don’t they? Of course, it’s government. You can’t have a government without a good old fashioned inefficient, ineffective bureaucracy now can you? Let’s assume that each twenty five employees needs a manager. So we divide 37,500 by 25 and that will give us the first level of management. Drum roll, 1500 more employees added to 37,500 employees and we’re to 39,000 new employees. But the managers need managers so let’s divide 25 into 1500, again a mid-manager for every 25 low level managers. Answer please, 60. And the sixty mid-levels will need managers so we divide 25 into 60 and we get 2.4, so being government, we’ll round up and say three more. So now we’re up to 39,063 employees just for those who actually do the work. The end right? Nope. These folks are going to need personnel departments, health insurance departments, employee relations, purchasing departments, accounting departments, Information technology departments, payroll departments, public relations, enforcement, and more and more and more. Let’s add another 25,000 employees for support. Now we are up to 64,063 employees to get the national ID thing going.

What about cost? Well, the average federal salary is about $70,000.00. Let’s multiply this number by the number of employees. Here it is: $4,484,410,063. Almost 4.5 billion. Heck, that’s nothing in today’s world. Pocket change right?

So here’s the skinny. Once again we have a government program proposed that will cost billions of dollars and won’t work. Please understand, I didn’t take into consideration the cost of the technology, buildings, costs of bureaucracy imposed upon the private sector through company compliance and the time folks spend getting their national ID card. It will be more than 4.5 billion and again, it won’t work.

I’ve got a better idea. It will cost, let’s see, as they say on the beach in Mexico, “almost nothing.”

Pass the following laws:

1. No state shall issue a driver’s license or a state I.D. card to a non-citizen or somebody who doesn’t have proper working papers.

2. It shall be unlawful to hire anybody without a driver’s license or a valid state I.D. card.

I think that does it. No new bureaucracy. No new billions spent. It would work. But who am I to think I know better than government?

All right, I’m infringing on state’s rights here and I’m not fond of doing that as a matter of principle, but it’s Government we’re analyzing, and Government hates principles. If I had my druthers, there wouldn’t even be driver’s licenses.

They won’t try the Reetzality approach though because they aren’t really into immigration reform or keeping illegals from working. As usual, they’re goal is un-Constitutional control. They want every American to have a zip-strip federal I.D. so that the exploding regulation, control, and destruction of our freedom and liberties is easier for Government.

Email your congressman. Email the President. Don’t let them do it. No national I.D. card. Period! That’s my Reetzality for the Day.

Finally, do I get a fee for saving the government, wait, I meant us, billions? Just asking.

That’s my Reetzality for the Day.

Thanks for the Read.

Brett Reetz

Note: Think my numbers are wrong? Lets check out the census numbers. The State of Kansas, not the most populous of states, anticipates 4000 census workers will be needed. Let’s say we have fifty states the size of Kansas. (Note Mr. President, there are not fifty-seven states). 50 times 4000 is 200,000. So nationally, if all states were the size of Kansas, we will have 200,000 census workers. Are there more populous states than Kansas? Last time I checked, yes. So to just count the people, not even creating and processing identification cards, just to count the folks once, the federal government needs 200,000 census workers and that’s assuming, in the government defenders’ favor, that all states are the size of Kansas. Oh, here’s another fact. The census is anticipated to cost 14 billion dollars. So maybe I actually underestimated the cost of the national I.D. You think? Final note: Kansas is ranked thirty second in the population ranking. It is number 32 in the ranking of most populated to least populated.

Note: I love the truth of mathematics.