It’s high up in the chain and miserable is a side effect of underfunded. I spent some time working at the CA dmv headquarters and can honestly say it’s actually kind of crazy how small the crew is that gets to decide how every other dmv in the state is run. They are running on a pretty tight budget (we had to fund our own drinking water and coffee) and they are definitely not trendsetters. These are people that have spent decades working in low paid government jobs and aren’t interested in risking much of anything. They have little resources, are not on the bleeding edge of anything, they know what works and mostly stick to that.

As an intern that knew my way around mail merges, outlook, and excel macros (around 2010), their minds were blown. But also they patted me on the head, gave me a phone, and asked me to physically call every DMV office in CA to ask them how many physical manuals they needed shipped to their office

"Subscribe to MegaCorp Brand Passport today! Featuring access to 52 tourist destination and monthly bonus locations!"

Ugh. That sounds so horrible it could actually happen.

I shudder thinking of how it would be if passport issuance was handed over to the highest private bidder.

Intuit already disgusts me with the tax shenanigans, can't imagine passports...

I wondered about this and found the awesome https://discover.passportindex.org/security/who-prints-your-... - the US seems to be unusual in not contracting it out to De La Rue (who also do banknotes) or Gemalto (subsidiary of Thales).

The bureau of consular affairs is funded by passport fees most of the time. They started losing a billion plus per year during COVID. This isn’t necessarily a problem of anti-statism as much of resources.

Nobody wants their passport fees to triple and it wouldn’t be fair. There also isn’t always an incentive to make things more efficient in the short term, so it’s not quite as simple in this case.

Resources are constrained only because of policies that say government services need to be self-funded to a greater extent than makes sense, even when this creates inefficiencies or perverse incentives (speed traps, asset forfeiture). Even if it's not intentionally anti-statist, the effect of undermining people's belief that the government can do anything useful or effective is the same.

> "(unless a libertarian wants to argue that the US should simply not issue passports at all and .. leave it up to private enterprise somehow?) "

I won't take you up on your offer, but I'd recommend for us all to take this concept of a passport and peel it back to it's core and constituent parts. Then be a bit honest and see how we feel about the freedom we supposedly have to roam this Earth free from tyranny and fear.