passport required article

"U.S. citizens traveling by air from Canada, Mexico and most Caribbean islands must present passports to reenter the country starting Jan. 23, the government said Wednesday."

I heard about this the other day on the radio. Supposedly they picked Jan. 23rd because they wanted to give folks some leeway during the holidays.

Okay, so if 1 in 4 Americans already has a passport... that's 1/4 of 300 million people. That equals roughly 75,000,000 people.

75,000,000 people x $97 passport fee = $7,275,000,000

I'm sure some people have had their passports for years and didn't pay anywhere near the $97 fee, but still -- that's a LOT of money. According to the article this will cut down on people entering the U.S. with fake IDs.

This reminds me about something else... figure that probably 1 in 3 Americans has at least one phone line (landline, cell, whatever). That's 100 million people. And each of us pays at least $2 in taxes/fees on our phone bills each month (low ball estimate). That's $200,000,000+ generated each MONTH. That multiplied by 12 months a year... geez, I am giving myself a headache. <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

<crawls off cynical soapbox>

it also takes a while to get one so it gives people a chance to get one without having to expedite it. they aren't cheap, but it's good for 10 yrs. i'm gonna get mine shortly. i had to get a birth certificate. all i had before was a birth record.

Better get accustomed to this sort of thing. It probably won't be long until you have to carry a passport or something similar like you now carry a driver's license.