House Committee on Ways and Means Will Be in Plano Today to Talk Child Identity Theft

A busy D.C. kinda in the DFW this first day of September. Because, recall, Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness convenes in Dallas today, first at Love Field and then at SMU, to chitchat infrastructure in advance of the jobs speech that John Boehner made the president put off by a day. The city council has also been invited to attend; matter of fact, Mayor Mike Rawlings and Eddie Bernice Johnson have been added to the Love Field agenda, scheduled to start, well, right about now.

And then there's this: The U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, chaired by Sam Johnson hisself, is meeting in the Plano City Council chambers at noon today to talk about child identity theft, which, per the meeting announcement, is a growing trend. As in: "There were 19,000 cases of child identity theft reported to the FTC in 2009, a 192 percent increase since 2003 when 6,500 cases were reported."

And that's bad, says Johnson. Very bad. Especially because it takes years to find out when someone's using a kiddo's Social Security number. By which time, it's way too late. Says the congressman, "Identity thieves prey on the good credit of law abiding citizens. Social Security numbers, even those belonging to children, are often the keys to pulling off these crimes. Taking steps to stop the overuse of Social Security numbers and giving law enforcement better tools to stop these thieves will help prevent identity theft and further protect the privacy of all Americans and their children."

Some Plano parents are scheduled to testify; so too are Southwest Region Director of Federal Trade Commission Deanya Kueckelhan; University of Texas at Dallas criminology prof Lynne Vieraitis and other law enforcers. Incidentally, my 8-year-old has terrible credit. But that's on him -- baseball cards and comic books.