Obama Proposes Increase in Security Screening Fee
 

Not a good start if there was hope of shrinking TSA's budget. According to this article in today's Houston Chronicle:

Sigh....

3.5 more years :td:

Another waste

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Come on. It should have been seen a mile away that a workfare program would NOT be cut in this economy ...

Exactly on point.

RadioDad (ex-Naval officer who saw out his career in a US gov't TLA) used to say, "Think how much trouble we'd be in if we got as much government as we're paying for." If he'd lived to see the 21st century and TSA, he'd have to come up with a new slogan. :(

Airlines are in serious trouble and this idiot proposes taxing them even more. :td:

Every article I've read is unclear on one thing: they all mention a rise from a maximum of $5 per trip (maybe not accurate) to $11 per trip (probably not accurate).

The current September 11 Security Fee (tax on airlines) is $2.50 per segment, maximum $5 each way for a maximum of $10 per round trip ticket.

Are these fools talking about raising the fee to $11 each way ($5.50 per segment) with a maximum of $22 per round trip?

Rather than taxing the airlines, as the current September 11 Security Fee does, the costs of airport security (as a national defense measure) should fall on the public (not the airlines).

The pax are paying the tax - it's just added into the ticket price like paying sales tax. Unfortunately, it'll make fares look higher.

The airline industry is the only one the government wants to tax back into health. :td: What Obama should be looking at is eliminating the waste that is TSA and shoring that up rather than just increasing the price.

Change is here, indeed. The illusion of change. :td: :(

Of course this is change we can believe in - if all politicians are liars and crooks, why does this (and other Omni-esque) 'change' surprise anyone?

Believe it. We got screwed.

Anybody who thinks the TSA will change can buy a bridge in Brooklyn.

If anything, it's going to get worse as the people in power think they have the obligation to run our lives and that we have no judgement (nor right) to decide what risks we'll accept.

There was a great editorial in the WSJ today about someone who went and listened to the happy talk at the meeting BHO had with the 9/11 families.

DHS is out to run our lives, any way we slice it.

Don't just accept it, complain
 

Write or email the President, your senator, and rep complaining about the potential fee increase.
Tell them they can instead stop having so many lines overstaffed, or not bothering with the overly expensive MMW body imagers.

It's painfully obvious at this point that they don't care. I wrote an email to the Obama campaign last year, and received a canned nonsense response - followed by an endless stream of spam that I needed to create a special rule to direct it to my trash bin even to this day.

They should be getting more efficient and thus less costly, after having had 7+ years to work on this since nationalizing the screening process.

Are we getting somehow more value from the screenings such that we should be paying more... double, even?

And why force up the price of travel? Maybe they secretly just want to make Amtrak pricing more competitive? A subsidy to GM and Chrysler since the govenrment will own 'em both?

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