Posted on 03/26/2026 3:01:15 PM PDT by Libloather
For weeks now, frustrated travelers trying to catch flights all over the United States have been caught in hours-long security-check lines as overwhelmed Transportation Security Administration agents were forced to work without pay.
It’s not the first time that federal funding for TSA — a highly visible service that impacts millions of Americans daily — has been caught up in a political brawl in Congress, this time over immigration enforcement.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
In fact, it never should have happened, not even once.
That’s because taxpayers and travelers already pay for transportation security, not through their taxes but through their plane tickets.
The federally mandated Passenger Security Fee, first levied after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to help fund TSA screening activities, has more than doubled since its inception.
Today, it adds an $11.20 charge to every round-trip ticket purchase — more than $4.5 billion in 2025 alone.
The fee is one of multiple government-mandated add-on charges, including a ticket excise tax, flight segment fees and passenger facility charges, that add taxes of 15% to 30% on every airline ticket you buy.
And while the lion’s share of Passenger Security Fee revenue was supposed to stay with TSA, Congress has chosen to divert much of it to feed an already fattened hyena.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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That’s the problem. Everything goes into one big trough and then the pigs we elect feast on it.
From a financial viewpoint THIS IS THEFT. Everyone has been forced to pay for TSA security and Schumer keeping the dough IS FRAUS and ILLEGAL.
But do we have a MSM that will slant it this way — NO
Can’t an presidential E.O. - executive order - cite this and force the monies to go to the workers.
Musk said he’d pay them.
??????
Airline security should be airlines responsibility not the government.
Trump said there were legal problems with that.
Riots are illegal too
But democrats give them to us regularly nonetheless/
Chaos is reported but it didn’t seem to be a problem yesterday at LAX.
TSA shouldn’t be federal employees! Just undo what Obama did, and the problem is solved!
He doesn’t get to, unless Congress authorizes it. In general, no government agency can accept money from a private donor. Congress maintains control over all spending by federal agencies; the money has to flow through them. Private individuals can donate money to the Treasury, but it can’t be used, unless Congress authorizes it, and appropriates the money. It’s a crime (probably more than one crime) for an agency to get money from a private source, and then spend it.
Time to sue!
Its true. They have already paid for it.
FWIW, Grok had a much longer answer but basically said this about the Dept of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs funding:
“The Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) in the U.S. Department of State is funded primarily through user fees collected for consular services (such as passports, visas, and certain citizen services), rather than relying heavily on direct annual appropriations from Congress. This fee-based model has been in place since around FY 2013, when CA shifted to largely self-funding its operations via retained consular fee revenue.”
During my time at DoS, Consular Affairs had complete control over the funds it received via user fees. That money did not go to Congress for re-allocation or to come back to CA. It stayed in CA accounts for CA to do with it as it wanted and CA has had much power and autonomy within DoS because of that. I guess that’s not a crime because Congress says it’s not?
That is exactly right & the pigs profiting on it the most seem to be the Democrats. I’m trying to figure out what should be a suitable punishment for them that could be lawfully implemented. That extra charge should be eliminated when it can’t be implemented & Democrat politicians made to run a gauntlet at airports. If nothing else, it would give frustrated passengers some possibly enjoyable “sport” while they are forced to wait for a flight that may even be canceled. I’m open to opinions on this. Maybe somebody has an even better suggestion.
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