Cost will kill national ID plan

Civil libertarians, get ready. Your blood is going to boil. A proposal has circulated Capitol Hill this past month calling for a national ID card that would contain biometric information, such as fingerprints.

The program, entitled BELIEVE (Biometric Enrollment Locally stored Information and Electronic Verification of Employment) is still a draft, but reports have arrived that the program, if passed, should be initiated within the next five-to-six-years.

The ID card would have an encryption key that would be checked by potential employers with a national database of individuals authorized to work. The Hill, a Washington, D.C. newspaper, reported that scanners, microchips, and databases would all be part of the program. Sounds expensive.

Christopher Calabrese, legislative council for the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), couldn't agree more.

"Creating a biometric national ID will not only be astronomically expensive, it will usher government into the very center of our lives." he said to The Hill. "All of this will come with a new federal bureaucracy - one that combines the worst elements from the DMV and the TSA."

This is very logical, and at this moment in history, definitely not something the government can handle with an overstuffed plate of problems. An obvious issue with the bill is the expansion of bureaucracy and the potential cost. This program will be expensive, seeing as there are 300 million Americans to ID, a new bureaucracy that must be set up, new technology and employment training.

The government is not swimming in a sea of cash these days. The United States can't handle more deficits. It has become a slave to China in terms of its debt and the value of the dollar is falling annually. If there is no responsible way to pay for this bill without raising the deficit, then the bill is just an idea, because it will never be passed.

Civil libertarians should breathe a sigh of relief. Considering the financial implications, a national ID card is not in America's future.