The Bloated TSA
My son, who travels by air each week, recently complained about the ever increasing hassle created by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA). I am old enough to remember air travel prior to hijacking planes to Cuba which first gave us screening. Initially the airlines were in charge of security for their gates. I once carried a gun through security, at the behest of a Delta supervisor, to test the effectiveness of the security operation. Then came 9/11 and the founding of the TSA. As with any government entity the TSA has become a bloated bureaucracy.
The TSA has more than 65,000 employees, and continues to grow. It has more personnel than the HUD, Labor, Education, and State Departments combined. As with any government agency it is bloated with management. TSA has nearly 4,000 employees at its Washington Headquarters in addition to almost 10,000 administrators in the field. Despite this bureaucracy Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner has stated that, “The ability of TSA screeners to stop prohibited items from being carried through the sterile areas of the airports fared no better than the performance of screeners prior to September 11, 2001.
Time for a reassessment of TSA. Time for TSA to become a lean and effective organization, not a typical government bureaucracy.
