The introduction at the top is wrong. It might not be a big deal to everyone here but you state that the State Dept. is making a profit on each passport ordered, but the article states:

"The Government Printing Office's decision to export the work has proved lucrative, allowing the agency to book more than $100 million in recent profits by charging the State Department more money for blank passports than it actually costs to make them"

The GPO is making a profit at the expense of the State Dept. To me this is a significant difference because the State Dept. has to outsource the printing to them and they're being overcharged for an inferior product that they're also unaware of happening.

I also don't see how this is a big deal. They're printing blank passports here and not finished products. Also, these agencies are required by law to save American taxpayers as much money as possible while still guaranteeing the security level of their products which they at least claim to be able to do and until an external audit proves otherwise this seems to be junk to me.

And what administration is going to get into office and start investigating the practices of the Gov't Printing Office? I mean who gives a rip. There's obviously bigger problems on their plate that they gave themselves here rather than worrying about what contractors the GPO is using at any given point in time.