December 21, 2007 12:17PM 

# Government ID Card Program Off the Rails 

By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) 

---

<a class="js-popover-trigger cursor-pointer popover-trigger" data-bs-placement="bottom" data-bs-trigger="click" id="popover-trigger"> 

SHARE 

</a> 

“The Internal Revenue Service paid a contractor $188,000 to provide one person to do clerical work over 11 months.”

That’s the opening line from an [AP report on waste](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/20/AR2007122002092.html) in the implementation of a [Bush Administration federal worker identity card](http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040827-8.html).

Here’s a little more:

> The IRS was responsible for developing and implementing the program to provide identification cards to about 150,000 employees at the Treasury Department. The projected cost of the program was $421 million over 14 years.

Check my math: Is that **$2,800 per card**?

##### Related Tags 

[Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy) 

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).