Ah-hah! It's a GOP plot!

[chhotii]

So, just noodling on my computer while on hold with National Passport Information Center (NPIC) (again!...)

I'm reading this blog of people's experiences trying to get passports recently. Getting a passport used to be pretty painless, but under the stellar leadership of GWB's administration, it has turned into a disaster. A New Orleans sized disaster. Naturally there is a lot of ranting. Here's one:

Applied March 12. Still no passport. AMAZING!!! This is typical public sector inefficiency. I am sick and tired of reading these people who say "well, you knew you were traveling so you should have applied early." How in the world can you tell people that when they walked into the agency and were told 8-10 weeks from DATE OF APPLICATION??? By my calculations I should have received mine at the latest on May 21st. I am leaving on the 13 of June. That is a 3 1/2 week buffer. STOP MAKING EXCUSES FOR GOVERNMENT INCOMPETENCE!!! And we have politicians running for president who want the government to run health care. America would have to be nuts to want that. I can just see my Dad dieing waiting for a new pacemaker battery. I contacted my congressman today and they took my info and said they would get back with me. I will let you know if that helps. GOOD LUCK ALL!!!

...and it occurs to me: Republicans don't give a shit about making government work better, because they want people to think that all government agencies must suck by their very nature. Al Gore was all about trying to make the government work better. He worked hard on that while he was VP. By contrast, a Republican administration has an incentive to let things suck, so we want less run by government (less taxes!) and more run by Wal-Mart (more profits!)

Comments

[marmota.livejournal.com]

*nod* If they could find a way to outsource passport processing to one
of their campaign financers buddies, I'm sure they
would. 'Course, then it would cost several hundred dollars so that
poor people wouldn't be able to travel, and there still wouldn't be a
guarantee on getting it in a timely fashion.

Then again, there was that whole "Major American shipping port
management deal going to a Saudi Arabian firm" scandal, so who knows,
the highest bidder for outsource could well be based in a country
we've been told to be afraid of. Say, Halliburton which is moving to Dubai.

[frotz.livejournal.com]

Just wait. The UK did that (outsourcing passport processing to a third party) just as I last renewed, and, while I grant that managing to apply right as the transition happened surely didn't help, it was a galloping clusterfuck all the way down. Perhaps a "more efficient customer-focused private sector enterprise" will be touted as the natural solution for the US, too.

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

Indeed, part of the processing HAS been outsourced-- just the initial handling. And is that the most smoothly-running part of the process? No way. We applied on April 12, it didn't get past those monkeys until some time in May.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

...and it occurs to me: Republicans don't give a shit about making government work better, because they want people to think that all government agencies must suck by their very nature.

Yup, pretty much. You could get my dad (retired federal civil servant) to rant for hours about such things, most likely.

I'm sorry this is such a clustefuck for you. :( And just think...after all this, you get to have a passport with crappy RFID included!

[http://users.livejournal.com/cgull_/]

I am soo glad I had my US passport renewed in 2004. That'll expire in 2014, and hopefully all the stupidity going around will have expired by then. And no RFID.