[dave5104]

SSNs are apples to oranges as well. I can't see a national ID not being a photo ID, so it'd be more akin to a driver's license--and those do cost money. And the cost will almost surely be higher than randomly generating a number.

[Godel_unicode]

The name for this logical fallacy is "strawman". We have an existing nationally issued identification card which is free and doesn't have a photo. That's an excellent reason to believe we could make a better one and have it be free as well.

I get free photo IDs all the time when I visit cloud data centers and they print me off a photo+QR code badge for the time I'm there. Drivers licenses are expensive because they are made to be extremely durable. They're made that way because they are constantly needed, not because of the photo printed on them. There's absolutely no reason whatsoever why a national ID card would have to be like a drivers license and not like a social security card. In fact, if they were legally required to be free they would very likely be just a name and a QR code. Leave all the photos to the back end, it's 2020.