Via Drudge, from the Washington Times:  Outsourced passport work risky

The State Department is now charging Americans $100 or more for new e-passports produced by the GPO, depending on how quickly they are needed. That’s up from a cost of around just $60 in 1998.

Internal agency documents obtained by The Times show each blank passport costs GPO an average of just $7.97 to manufacture and that GPO then charges the State Department about $14.80 for each, a margin of more than 85 percent, the documents show.

The accounting allowed GPO to make gross profits of more than $90 million from Oct. 1, 2006, through Sept. 30, 2007, on the production of e-passports. The four subsequent months produced an additional $54 million in gross profits.

The agency set aside more than $40 million of those profits to help build a secure backup passport production facility in the South, still leaving a net profit of about $100 million in the last 16 months. GPO was initially authorized by Congress to make extra profits in order to fund a $41 million backup production facility at a rate of $1.84 per passport. The large surplus, however, went far beyond the targeted funding. 

So, not only am I paying the US Government to pay Europe and Thailand to make my passport under questionable security standards, but I’m paying them too much?

As someone who just dished out $100 last week to get a new passport, this “large surplus” talk makes me a bit unhappy…  I knew the price seemed more than when I got my passport in 8th grade.

(Sidenote:  I filed this under the gossip category for kicks and giggles since the GPO hasn’t ‘fessed up to anything.  But seriously, does anyone doubt this?)