Deep-six Real ID:

"Deep-six Real ID" is the title of an (unsigned) opinion piece in the Baltimore Sun online that goes right to the point:

A better idea would be to junk the so-called Real ID plan altogether. Verifying citizenship should not be a state responsibility. The local departments of motor vehicles have been put in the impossible position of authenticating birth certificates and passports and immigration documents when their real job is trying to make sure people who get licenses know how to drive.

...

Politicians seeking simple answers to complex problems are rarely successful. But Congress' boneheaded plan to convert 50 state driver's license bureaus into de facto immigration and homeland security agencies is proving every bit the disaster critics anticipated.

Congress' mandate to re-license all 245 million drivers in the nation within five years beginning May 2008 in order to verify their citizenship will cost more than $11 billion and can't possibly be accomplished on schedule, according to a survey of state officials charged with performing the task. Federal regulators haven't even issued guidelines for the program yet.

What's more, this national identification process will neither weed out terrorists nor make a dent in the flow of illegal immigration - the two problems it was devised to address.

Many state governors want to get rid of Real ID. The states' federal congress people should get on the same page.