TSA
By
Leonard Zwelling
These have become the three most feared letters in the alphabet. Everyone is quite aware that the members of the Transportation Security Administration have gone unpaid for weeks because of a budget fight in Congress. Many TSA agents have called in sick and have quit. Many of the checkpoints at our airports manned by these vital workers are closed for lack of these agents. Wait times are climbing especially at Bush Airport.
Congress is stuck. The Republicans want all of the various aspects of the. Department of Homeland Security fully funded. That includes both TSA and ICE. The Democrats want some constraints on what ICE can do including wearing masks and, in general, terrorizing both illegal immigrants and American citizens. ICE killed two people in Minneapolis both of whom were American citizens. ICE is acting like Nazi storm troopers in the eyes of many Americans. Others think they are just upholding the law. Maybe ICE is more feared than TSA. Either way the funding for DHS and TSA is on hold for now, stuck in the Senate looking for 60 votes which has not happened yet.
While people can disagree on the extremes to which the federal government ought to go to find and deport illegal aliens, there is no disagreement on the importance of the TSA at our airports. While there was a joke that TSA stood for “Talking and Standing Around,” which it often seemed like the agents were doing at Bush Airport, the TSA agents at Bush were also, in my opinion, the best anywhere at getting you through the check points and to your flight. Today, it’s the worst. No one has explained why IAH in particular was targeted by TSA, but it appears that it was. Wait times are up to four hours and Pre-TSA and Clear lanes are shut down. There simply is no way to avoid the protracted wait.
In the past, at times of national emergency or extreme inconvenience, we Americans expected Congress to act to fix the situation, and if politics got in the way of a fix, we expected the President to intervene, twist some arms, make some threats, and allow Congress to take credit for the fix. Can you imagine LBJ standing for these lines? Me neither. Late word tonight is that Mr. Trump has decided to pay the TSA. Now? Why not five weeks ago?
Congress is at an impasse and Mr. Trump has so angered, abused, and insulted the Democrats that he has no leverage with any of them. Chuck Schumer would sooner stop talking than bow to Mr. Trump’s entreaties, if there were any entreaties from the White House, which there have not seem to have been yet. Mr. Trump also has threatened to hold up a TSA funding fix that would benefit American air travelers until his Save America bill is passed. Given that this bill, which would ratchet up the requirements for voters to register, will likely never pass, anyone needing to fly is being greatly penalized by stubborn old men at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Maybe if the members of Congress have to wait in such lines when they try to go home this weekend, whether or not the Easter/Passover break occurs, we can get some movement. But, not yet in Congress even if Mr. Trump’s latest move is a temporary fix.
What this current situation demonstrates is what so many people, me included, feared would happen during a second Trump term. The politics has become even more vicious than usual. Heels are dug in. There is no compromise of any kind. Mr. Trump does not understand his role as a leader for all Americans. He is no leader and never has been. Everything for him is about partisan politics or ways to make himself rich. For him, TSA stands for Tough S—t America.
So, how does this end?
Either Schumer, Thune, Johnson, and Jeffries figure out a way to fund the TSA immediately or the lines at Bush, and some other airports, will continue to grow. TSA agents will quit to find jobs so they can feed their families. The leaving agents cannot be easily or rapidly replaced even with the Trump fix. Like the air traffic controllers who also seem to be under constant stress and understaffed, the TSA agents are simply not able or not willing to do their jobs without being paid. Who can blame them?
I am sorry MAGA world. Your fearless leader has screwed up the world oil supply for nothing so far. He has managed to give Vladimir Putin’s oil-based economy a shot in the arm as the price of his oil rises and puts rubles in Putin’s coffers to fund the war in Ukraine (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/opinion/russia-putin-iran-war.html). This has not remotely improved the situation on the ground in Ukraine.
You cannot get the Nobel Peace Prize by bombing Iran into submission, especially when Iran is not submitting to anything.
America is worse off for the second Trump presidency. We all are paying more for gas and waiting in line at the airport. Mr. Trump is neither a leader nor a manager. To use his own worlds, he’s a loser. He should be fired. The hope is his power will be checked by Democratic congressional victories in November. Meanwhile, if you have a plane to make in Houston, good luck. Our trip to Nashville in three weeks may just not happen.
