The government promised Real ID would make air travel safer and more efficient.
Instead, it’s turning into another bureaucratic disaster that’s leaving Americans stranded at airports.
And TSA just handed travelers one nasty surprise that proves government can’t do anything right.
Government’s "solution" creates new problems for travelers
The Transportation Security Administration is rejecting Real IDs at airport checkpoints across the country because the government’s own scanning equipment can’t read them properly.
Maine’s Secretary of State office confirmed that some Real IDs issued by the state have been rejected at various TSA checkpoints due to what officials are calling "sporadic" scanning issues.¹
"A tiny fraction of Maine REAL IDs could not be read by the TSA bar code readers," an official with Maine’s Department of the Secretary of State told reporters.¹
But here’s where it gets really rich – the TSA’s brilliant solution is to tell people to get a replacement card after they return from their trip.
That’s like telling someone their house is on fire but they should wait until after vacation to call the fire department.
The problem has been going on for "several months" according to officials, which means the government knew about this mess and did nothing to warn travelers.¹
New Hampshire experienced similar Real ID scanning failures back in May, proving this isn’t isolated to one state’s incompetence.¹
The scanning problems go beyond airports
Airport security isn’t the only place where these government-issued IDs are failing to work.
Maine residents are reporting that their Real ID-compliant licenses won’t scan at gas stations and other businesses that rely on barcode readers.¹
One traveler posted on Reddit that Hertz rejected their Real ID because "it would not scan."¹
So the government forces you to get a new ID, then that ID doesn’t work anywhere you actually need to use it.
This is bureaucracy at its finest.
The root cause? One of Maine’s "instant-issue printing machines" was malfunctioning and pumping out defective IDs for months.¹
Look, here’s what’s really happening
The Real ID program was supposed to be the government’s answer to making identification more secure and standardized.
Instead, it’s become another expensive boondoggle that creates more problems than it solves.
Think about the timeline here – Real ID became mandatory for domestic flights back in May, and we’re already seeing widespread failures in September.¹
The government had nearly two decades to get this right, and they still managed to screw it up.
Maine had one of the lowest Real ID compliance rates in the country at just 27% before the mandate, which only increased to 32% by July.¹
You want to know why compliance was so low? Because regular folks could smell this disaster coming from miles away.
Now the TSA is telling travelers to bring backup identification because their own system doesn’t work reliably.¹
That’s like a restaurant telling customers to bring their own food because the kitchen might be closed.
Here’s the part that should really tick you off – while hardworking Americans are getting hassled at airports because of the government’s broken scanning equipment, bureaucrats are calling this a "sporadic" problem affecting only a "tiny fraction" of travelers.¹
Tell that to the family whose vacation got ruined because their government-issued ID wouldn’t scan.
This is exactly why Americans don’t trust big government solutions to everyday problems.
They promise to make things better, charge you more money, create new bureaucratic hurdles, then act surprised when their system doesn’t work.
The TSA’s advice to "bring backup ID" basically admits their entire Real ID system is unreliable.¹
But don’t expect any accountability from the bureaucrats who created this mess.
They’ll keep collecting their paychecks while you deal with the consequences of their incompetence at the airport security checkpoint.
¹ Ben Cost, "Real IDs are being rejected at airports by TSA due to ‘sporadic’ scanning issues," New York Post, September 1, 2025.
