Airports in Chaos as Congress Plays Games
Shutdown follies are not victimless.
NYT (“Security Lines Snake Out of More Terminals as T.S.A. Goes Unpaid“):
Travelers at a growing number of U.S. airports are encountering shuttered security checkpoints and waiting hours in lines that extend well outside the terminals as the partial government shutdown enters its fifth week.
About 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers have been working without pay since Feb. 14 as Congress remains at an impasse over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the T.S.A., because of a disagreement on immigration enforcement.
T.S.A. officers missed their first full paycheck on Friday after receiving only a partial paycheck at the end of February. As bills and rent come due, a growing number of T.S.A. employees have picked up second jobs, sometimes calling out sick to do so. More than 300 officers have quit since the shutdown started, according to the department, and more than 10 percent did not report to work on Sunday.
“Our officers are coming to work, but there’s going to be a breaking point sooner or later,” said Christine Vitel, a T.S.A. officer at Chicago O’Hare International Airport and the executive vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 777, a union representing T.S.A. officers in Illinois and Wisconsin.
Ms. Vitel said at least two members of her union had been evicted because they were unable to pay their rent. During the lengthy government shutdown last fall, she said, government employees received extensions or interest-free loans from landlords and financial institutions. This time, she said, much of the public isn’t even aware there’s a shutdown. Ms. Vitel has considered asking her father for a loan so she can pay her credit card bills.
[…]
T.S.A. officers, whose salaries average about $50,000, will receive back pay when the shutdown ends. But that’s little comfort when many of them are still recovering from the record 43-day shutdown last fall, said Angela Grana, a T.S.A. officer at Durango-La Plata County Airport in southwest Colorado and the regional vice president of A.F.G.E. Local 1127.
“We’re still trying to pay the late fees,” she said. “We’re still trying to ask our creditors to please give us a break.”
In the meantime, some aviation experts say the T.S.A. is being used as a pawn in a political standoff.
“T.S.A. is being held hostage,” said Sheldon H. Jacobson, an aviation security researcher and professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign whose work formed the basis for the creation of T.S.A. PreCheck. He said Homeland Security officials could choose to reallocate money to pay T.S.A. staff if they wanted to. “But nobody wants to take those steps, because you lose political chips when you compromise.”
Unlike the fall shutdown, air traffic controllers are being paid, as Congress has funded the Department of Transportation.
Regardless, it’s simply outrageous to force people to go to work not knowing when they will be paid. That some have been evicted from their homes, had their cars repossessed, and been forced to pay late fees only adds insult to injury.
I recognize that Democrats, who control neither the White House nor either House of Congress, have limited tools available to constrain the Trump administration. Further, they’re on the right side of the ICE overreach issue. But their quest for leverage should not be borne by poorly-paid civil servants.*
My longstanding view on this is that we should either return to the pre-Carter administration view of the Antideficiency Act, and simply continue to pay government workers during budget standoffs (the money is being borrowed, anyway, at this point), or have actual government shutdowns. Simply pretending to shut down all or parts of the government while those performing essential tasks are required to continue doing so has got to stop.
*TSA agents average $22-26 an hour, depending on location and seniority.
As someone who has worked in PR most of my adult life and in politics before that: this is NOT going to work. Republicans don’t care if this produces chaos, the general public’s attention is elsewhere, and TSA agents don’t deserve this.
I really, really wish Congressional Republicans had a conscience, but they don’t. ICE needs to be reined in. That is without question, but wreaking havoc in airports is too disconnected from the issue for the public.
In the meantime.
Democrats deliver latest DHS funding offer to White House
BTW. Congress is going to be asking for billions in defense supplements to pay for the Iran War. Maybe under reconciliation which I believe has to be funded by offsets. If I were a Democrat, I would source those offsets from the ICE budget.
Agreed.
Oh.