President Trump wants to reduce the number of TSA screeners at airports. That should have every air traveler worried. There are changes at TSA that could reduce staffing levels, but just getting rid of screeners without changing anything else about airport security would mean long waits at airport.
The president…wants to reduce funding for TSA screening by $247 million, with the White House saying the budget would drop front-line officer levels.
Despite an overall budget proposal that’s being described as slash and burn, the Trump administration offered a budget that actually increases spending at the Department of Transportation $1.5 billion (6%) year-over-year.
That’s even after planning a 75% reduction in Essential Air Service subsidies and a mass layoff at the department planned for next month. There are cuts in other areas as well.
Great job by @SecDuffy and @USDOT for terminating 7 wasteful grants with award value of $54M and savings of $51M, including:
– $6M for “collaborative planning to address safety concerns of women and gender non-conforming people”
– $12M for “accelerating equitable…— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) May 2, 2025
At the same time there’s money for increased air traffic control hiring. However, the proposal includes reduced funding for TSA screening in the amount of $247 million including a reduction in screeners. This would be a very bad idea.
There are many things that would make TSA better, more efficient, and less costly. However if you’re just going to reduce the workforce you’ll wind up with significant traveler delays. Those are very unpopular and will make it harder to have the political capital for other priorities – so it’s counterproductive to anyone’s agenda that proposes this.
TSA’s major problem is that it regulates itself. It’s both the standards-setting agency for airport security and carries out screening tasks as well. They’re accountable only to themselves. And while checkpoint wait times are down (though not necessarily in Austin, Atlanta or Denver), there’s little to suggest they’re doing a better job at the core security function.
Denver
Analogic machines are already excruciatingly slow at processing carry-on bags. Slowing down the checkpoint more with fewer staff to push people and belongings through a lethargic process compounds dumb with stupid. We need to fix the process before reducing the staffing expected to carry out the process.
While the Trump administration’s budget represents its priorities in some sense, the document itself has no chance of becoming law. It’s not even clear that there will be a budget as opposed to a series of continuing resolutions which extend the status quo.
Compounding dumb with stupid is the motto of this administration!
Why in the world can’t the mall cops be replaced with technology? This is already done to a certain extent with checked baggage.
My comment (flying a few times a week) is that there always seem to be a lot of officers “standing around.” Or in meetings. The new machines are painfully slow (not helped by amateur travelers removing belts, change, phones…) There is a new process involving providing my license and having my photo taken, and the initial screening seems fast. One of the “selling points” for the TSA was that the process would be the same at every airport. Over time the process has become more and more different. It seems to me that it is almost always different at a different airport.
Getting rid of the government’s passenger ID checks will allow for the reduction of no less than 2 TSA employees at nearly each and every airport with daily service from at least 2 of the 5 biggest US passenger airlines.
Worthless and burdensome. It’s a twofer!
When TSA first came on line, I told many of my colleagues that just give it time. It will eventually morph into the DMV. Looks like we are just about there.
Don’t forget that on Wednesday Real ID is going to get real. How much will that slow things down at security?
Let’s face it. Most of them do, really, just stand around.
Here’s hoping America gets everything we voted for…EVERYTHING!!!
@George tell me, would you be willing to look at a TSA agent in the face and call them a “mall cop?” If you can’t say it to their faces it adds no value to the conversation and just makes you look small. The TSA was set up by people you voted for, not the agents you have so little regard for. My hope is you wouldn’t be so cruel as to insult someone trying to earn an honest living to their faces but, judging by some of your posts on here, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were willing to stoop to that level.
@Parker
Countries where you can’t denigrate people in a position of authority are police states.
That is not what the United States was meant to be.
@Parker that’s what they essentially are. The only reason we have this 1995 style process is that government is allergic to anything that is efficient and cost savings. If the checked bags can go through automated screening tha why not carry out? But you’d rather stand in line. Even PreCheck is now a cluster.
Perhaps Unintimidated can inform us about whether Sweden is a police state. Sweden has scheduled in a new crime this year: that of insulting the police. This comes on the heels of them having launched authorization of searches of whomever and whatever they feel like even at some of the major train stations and shopping malls in the country — and there is no requirement for a warrant or articulable probable cause or reasonable suspicion applicable to people they choose to just pick on a whim. The police have also jumped into “random” ID checks at public places such as private boat yards, shopping malls and on the street.
Unfortunately, too much of the world has been on a slippery slope toward majoritarian authoritarianism since 9/11 — and things like government-mandated passenger ID checks and passenger blacklists are part and parcel of that slippery slope.
Longer lines at national parks, longer lines at airports… so we should just stay home? Well, that can’t be good for the consumer-driven US economy. Get out of the stocks that rely on discretionary consumer spending now!
Unless you’re flying out of ATL, then you won’t notice much of a difference either way. Especially in the precheck/clear area.
@GU. Sweden is having trouble with many of its Middle Eastern immigrants that are there now. This gives the police more power to ship these people out of the country. Most of them don want to assimilate in their society, speak the language, etc. Real ID legislation was passed twenty years ago. Roughly 80% have the new ID’s. Is it safe to assume the 20% that do not are Democrats?
Considering most major airports already frequently only have a handful of lines staffed and running anyway this seems like a recipe for disaster. The new facial photo scanners and the new, horrendously slow “keep everything in your bag” machines have already slowed things down in recent years before you even get to staffing levels.
Why not just stop doing airport security completely instead of assuring misery for all non-Congressional passengers by ensuring that there’s not enough people to do the job? The savings would be uuuuge and after all – what could possibly go wrong?
@unintimidated if you think being American and living is a free society is about the right to “denigrate” others, regardless of their position, we have entirely different moral codes.
My parents taught me to treat people with respect. Apparently, somewhere along the way you were taught or learned that it’s okay for you to treat people how ever you want. How sad for you.
Oh, and @unintimidated, for to remind you…a police state is where the government pushes aside the courts to engage in whatever behavior it deems fit. A police state is a government that harasses the media, threatening to punish them for reporting things the government sees as unsavory.
Sound familiar? If not let me get you and @Gerore a mirror.
Bigger threat to air travel is all the FAA workers leaving. Many are not being cut but leaving because of what’s happening internally. The DOGE. experiment is causing more disruption behind the scenes than what you read in the news. ATC and the inspector ranks are losing a lot of much needed experienced professionals from their ranks.
Air Safety is a complex and fragile web, it’s being toyed with and I fear we will be seeing more accidents. There’s a right way and a wrong way to cut out government waste, in the case of the FAA the wrong way could cause fatalities.