The Real ID Act of 2005 - Too Much?

The Real ID Act of 2005 was signed by President Bush in the month of May as a result to the need for higher national security since the events of September 11th. This act requires that all states issue new driver's licenses to all drivers based on new federal standards by December of 2009. While a cooperative state-federal standard for new driver's licenses was in the process as of 2004, these attempts have been halted with the new act in place. For specific details of the act itself you can access the the National Conference of State Legislators website at http://www.ncsl.org/standcomm/sctran/Realidsummary05.htm.

At first I felt as though a national identification card of some sort would be beneficial and may even make getting through airport security easier when traveling. However, I was unaware that this new act was overturning an act from just a year before in which the state and federal levels of government would together decide on new standards. I feel like this is more acceptable, especially if a large majority of the costs will be coming out of the state governments' budgets. States know how much money they can be put toward new driver's licenses between now and December of next year. The federal government can still make sure that all of these new identification cards are extremely difficult to copy and hold to the national standards. A compromise between the two levels of government makes more sense then the federal government controlling something very much at the state level, even if it would increase national security immensely.