(Rage and hypertension alert: The images are real, the facts are the facts, the desire to burn it all down is…a daily occurrence.)

So, this is what greeted fliers when they arrived at America’s airports yesterday:

The chaos at security checkpoints is being attributed to spring break travel and understaffing of Transportation Security Agency (TSA) facilities due to lack of full appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security.

But how can that be? After all, the 2001 Aviation and Transportation Security Act that created the TSA also contained fees to pay for TSA personnel:

The original fee was $2.50 per trip ($5.00 for a round trip) and was added to the ticket price. Because of these fees, TSA and the safety of passengers could not be held hostage by a lack of annual appropriations. Nor could a lack of annual appropriations stymie passengers’ ability to plan their travel day and not have a COMPLETELY $%^& MISERABLE EXPERIENCE.

What happened? Congress happened.

The 2013 Bipartisan Budget Act included this bit of larceny:

That’s right, the fee was “restructured” to be higher (now up to $5.60 and $11.20), have a small portion reserved for the TSA, and the bulk of the fees to be deposited in the Treasury general fund. Translation: This is now just a (hidden) tax that we are going to make higher and use for the current congressional whim. Security, safety, and passenger rights be damned.

The 2018 Bipartisan Budget Act finished the job by diverting even more fees to the Treasury, including for fiscal year 2026.

There you have it. Congress undercut the secure funding of aviation security in the name of bipartisan “budgeting.” The only question is which is bigger: the wait time or the deficit?