It'd solve a lot of problems and we're (in the US) already living with most of the down-sides of one but without any of the benefits; however, it's a somewhat unpopular idea among Democrats and a very unpopular idea among Republicans. Without a major shift, it's not gonna happen.

Can you cite a source about republicans not wanting state IDs? The data would seem to contradict you.

We already have state IDs. Talk about making them mandatory and provided, automatically, for free and useful for the things a national ID is useful for (replacing our widespread and awful use of Social Security numbers as a de facto personal ID for interactions with business and government, for example) and you start to run into resistance in a hurry.

They do tend to favor adding ID requirements to voting, though, yes.

Republicans want voter ID, but they don't want to mandate IDs that must be carried. Democrats seem to stand for the inverse.

I feel like Republicans push back against the idea of one being compulsory. Its a strange state of affairs for sure.

Tangent of a tangent: Wiki says "in 2006, only 20% of Americans had passports. As of 2011, approximately 37% of Americans have passports or passport cards."[1]

Did the 2008 financial crisis somehow double the number of Americans with passports?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_documents_in_the_Unit...

What's that have to do with UBI? I'm confused.

Not really related, but related enough to be interesting: https://ubic.app/ This is a proof-of-passport cryptomoney: You receive money on a regular basis simply with your passport, making it a de-facto UBI

OP probably asserts that government that struggles to issue trivial piece of plastic to all of its citizens has absolutely no capability whatsoever of executing something as grandiose as UBI.