365個英語小故事 第324期：US Passports Outsourced

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The federal government has decided that it’s too expensive to print US passports in the US. Starting later this year, the government will send all passports to Thailand. A printing company in Thailand will print all US passports at a significant savings to the US taxpayer.

A radio ad in Los Angeles proclaims that a citizen’s identity is stolen every 3 seconds. “Outsourcing our passports is only going to make identity theft a bigger problem,” said an angry citizen. “What’s next? Before we know it, they’ll be printing driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and social security cards in Thailand. This will result in total chaos. Fifty people will have the same passport and driver’s license.”

A US Senator said that outsourcing is necessary because of the Iraq War. “To pay for the war, we have to reduce our spending elsewhere,” he said. He said that passports were only the beginning; money was next. Starting two years from now, he said that all US cash would be printed overseas. Starting three years from now, he said, military vehicles and weapons would be made overseas.

“The good news,” he said, “is that we are going to also outsource our military troops. Two undeveloped countries have agreed to replace our soldiers starting four years from now. Our American soldiers will gradually return to America, and these foreign soldiers will do all the fighting in Iraq. This will reduce our military costs in Iraq 90 percent, from $10 billion monthly to only $1 billion. To further reduce spending, of course, all the returning American soldiers will be laid off.”