How about making the id voluntary to get, but required to get benefits. Want to get the guvmint out of your life? Sure, then don't ask for unemployment benefits.
As an American: see the classic "Get your government hands off my Medicare" line. I don't know how many of us actually paid attention in Civics or bothered actually trying to understand how our government is supposed to work.
How about you get evicted and cannot get food stamps for your family, because your non-driver ID expired three months ago and you have a hard time getting a day off to take a bus downtown to DMV?
There are clearly other ways to solve this that don't involve depriving people of food stamps. Most every other developed country has figured out some solution.
First of all, in most countries an expired proof of citizenship is accepted for many purposes because it's assumed that people didn't go out of their way to coincidentally lose their citizenship or permanent residence when the ID expired. If it proves residence or driving qualifications, then there are certainly other reasons why it should expire.
Suppose we have an administration, decentralized or otherwise, that stores the records of the people concerned. They can then be contacted and details can be verified.
This informal verification already occurs on many levels, particularly in the US due to the lack of consistent ID. Try flying on a flight without photo ID, entering the US as a US citizen without proof of citizenship, etc. You will be permitted to do so with a bit of extra hassle while you're identified to a reasonable degree of confidence.
I've found that HN and other online communities have a disproportionate number of users who have no idea of rural life in America. As such they cannot fathom a poor, rural person without a birth certificate or a photo ID or the ability to get either.
edit: To get an EBT card in NYC you can do it all online if you have a valid (ie, not expired, ID card.) If you do not have a valid (ie, expired, ID card), then you have to go to the DMV so they can take your picture and you sign a few forms. The forms are available in 22 languages. At the same time they may work to get you a new, valid, ID card.
How are the DMV opening hours/wait times? Now imagine that impact on a person with some minimum wage job. You have a valid point but the marginal cost of bureaucracy to a poor/disabled person is often a lot higher than to someone for whom life is going smoothly. Also, it's easier to fall off the smooth track than to get back on.
What is the alternative to get a valid ID card and an EBT card? I understand there's a hardship for someone that can't get away for a few hours to travel to the DMV office. But it's the same hardship for everyone. There are basic requirements:
1) You have to go to the DMV office
2) You have to agree to have your picture taken
3) You have to fill out 3 forms (offered in your native
language -- 22 languages are offered)
4) You have to provide a mailing address for where the EBT card will be sent
And then you have to be on the other end of that mailing address to receive and activate your EBT card.
This all seems like very easy procedures to follow to get food stamps.
I understand there's a hardship for someone that can't get away for a few hours to travel to the DMV office. But it's the same hardship for everyone.
No it isn't. The marginal costs are different. If you earn $2000 a week and through some mischance have to give up a day's earnings to go the DMV your $400 loss is an annoyance. If you earn $500/week your loss as a percentage of income is the same but the economic impact of losing $100 is probably much bigger.
> "Voluntary to get, required for some benefits" is another way to say "involuntary". What is citizenship but a collection of benefits?
This is pretty clearly a poor extrapolation. For example, Global Entry. Is signing up for Global Entry involuntary? It is voluntary to get, required for some benefits.
You're not getting any intrinsic benefits. If you are a US citizen, you are allowed to return to the US after international travel. Global Entry doesn't change any of that.
On average, it does make returning easier, which is nice... but the machines could be out of order, or you could be flagged for questioning in the usual manner, etc.
If “making something easier” doesn’t count as a “benefit”, I think that maybe there’s a fundamental disagreement about what it means for something to be beneficial.
Global Entry is pretty clearly beneficial for the user, as part of the border control experience. Whether having things like Global Entry is beneficial to society is, as `tptacek points on parallel to your comment, a very different question.
The main purpose of government is providing infrastructure like roads and bridges, as well as enforcement of property rights and security through police and courts, as well as through healthcare and armed forces.
You get all of that without this hyothetical ID. Unemployment benefits is somewhere much further down the list. It could be argued to be a security measure both to keep the crime rate lower and to prevent an uprising from disenfranchised poor people, but it serves this purpose just fine even if a few people voluntarily opt out.
The main purpose of government is providing infrastructure like roads and bridges
Roads and bridges being a government function is a somewhat recent notion that we've grown accustomed to.
Historically in the United States, roads and bridges were privately owned, and users paid a toll to a private person or company to use them. This was one of the many disagreements between the states that led to the Civil War.
There are plenty of private roads and bridges still in existence in the Untied States, mostly in the older states.
> The main purpose of government is providing infrastructure like roads and bridges
> Roads and bridges being a government function is a somewhat recent notion that we've grown accustomed to.
> Historically in the United States, roads and bridges were privately owned, and users paid a toll to a private person or company to use them. This was one of the many disagreements between the states that led to the Civil War.
> There are plenty of private roads and bridges still in existence in the Untied States, mostly in the older states.
I've always wondered about the bridge at Dingman's Ferry. Reading through the website, I wonder how they could possibly enforce the penalty for overages in terms of tonnage. Since they are a private entity would law enforcement issue a citation or would the bridge corporation be forced to litigate?
Wouldn’t anyone who did that be subject to a civil suit for damages? Also the bridge owners would have insurance.
In addition to standard economic devices like tort and insurance, the bridge owners could have a part of the road before the bridge that is designed to buckle or alarm if a weight is exceeded. That would save them a lot of money and frustration.
I figured as much with regards to civil suit, was just curious about public enforcement of private regulations when the lines appear blurred. Further, I wonder by what authority they can even set monetary fines? Like, why stop at $X for a fine? I ask because their site lists specific penalties which seem somewhat arbitrary [0]. I can't arbitrarily "fine" someone $1000 for stepping on my lawn. I can certainly take them to court for trespassing and possibly collect some damages, but those damages are not a fixed value in a fee schedule. So I wonder how this corporation has the authority to impose fines.
I don't think it's a particularly recent notion. Ancient cities are the archetypical government, providing defense, some sort of justice system, and (often paved) roads. We see evidence of that from as far ago as the nearly 6000 year old city of Ur. Where larger empires existed, they often built larger road networks between cities to facilitate commerce and troop movements. The Inca road system and the Roman roads are well known examples of road networks built by their respecive empires. The Romans are also kind of famous for their bridges (viaducts and aquaducts).
Of course the less important roads were and still are often private, and the early US had an atypical lack of government that made this more common. But I don't think that proves that governments providing roads and bridges is a recent phenomenon, it's in fact rather ancient.
The US government exists to collect taxes, pay debts, prove for common defense and provide for the general welfare.
Roads were historically a local and state priority, so be careful with your modern conservative principles, as they probably are not compatible with your lifestyle.
How is that different from requiring vaccines for public school, a license to drive a car or fly a plane, or even a safety course and hunting license to hunt? Most of the things that are benefits of citizenship that don’t require any voluntary steps are true “public goods”, like national defense or the societal benefits of education, etc.
It seems more like the whole "Raise your drinking age to 21, or the federal government will withhold road improvement money from your state." It's coercion.
Employment is also voluntary yet we are somehow okay with it being necessary to not become homeless and will often accept terms which are very biased towards the benefit of our employer.
We have those. They're called Passports. But the rub is that some states and local municipalities will not accept a US Passport as ID. Which makes no sense what-so-ever.
This line of thinking sounds consistent but actually isn’t: even if you’re against the government interfering in your life, you’re still entitled to the benefits that you paid for. Your line would only be consistent if the individuals could opt out of paying. This is the source of the “coercion” claim that libertarians make.
First of all, an ID doesn't need to have anything to do with citizenship. It can also be a claim of residence like a driver's license in the US.
Second, if people are eligible for benefits, they are clearly being recorded in some fashion. If the benefit requires permanent residence in the US, I would presume most states are attempting to verify this as well.
In either case, this can be used for either a residence ID or a stronger ID that proves citizenship or immigration status, the latter resembling the national ID cards that many EU countries (among other places) have.
USA is set to require a passport or state-issued Enhanced ID [0] for domestic airline travel this year. It's about as close to a "national ID card" as it can get.
>First of all, an ID doesn't need to have anything to do with citizenship
Here is the comment further up that this comment is in the context of:
>It amazes me that there is no authentication provided by governments in the US to citizens.
Do you see why we are talking about citizenship now? Especially when much of the discussion is revolving around voting as well, which does require a certain citizenship status.
The discussion was about unemployment benefits, which in most every case is not limited to US citizens. I believe that when the person who you quoted used the term "citizens," they meant it in a looser sense to refer to people eligible for unemployment benefits, which is what I responded to. Citizenship is also not sufficient proof to receive benefits, so I'm unclear why we're trying to add another confounding factor when states already have a (less than comprehensive) system for tracking residency that can be adapted.
You can get an ID without a birth certificate, many people do. And it has nothing to do with minorities; a large percentage of people without birth certificates are white.
Or social security numbers. Or tax returns. Or proof of address. Or... basically anything that can reasonably indicate that they are who they say they are.