$4.5 billion was collected in fees by the Transportation Security Administration of the United States in 2025. Why are its agents not getting paid during the partial shutdown of the federal government?
$4.5 Billion Collected. Why Are They Not Getting Paid?
Before that question can be answered, some history needs to be recalled.
The Passenger Fee — which is also known as the September 11 Security Fee and became effective as of February 1, 2002 — is collected by commercial airlines from passengers at the time air transportation is purchased. The fees that were collected is then remitted to the Transportation Security Administration. The fee is currently $5.60 per one-way trip in air transportation that originates at an airport in the United States — except that the fee imposed per round trip shall not exceed $11.20.
$4,535,253,000.00 in fees were collected in 2025, which is the most fees that have been collected in one fiscal year since the establishment of the Transportation Security Administration of the United States in 2001. Despite the current partial shutdown of the federal government, every passenger still pays the September 11 Security Fee whenever he or she travels by airplane — so why is that money not being used to pay the agents as they work?
Members of the House of Representatives of the United States established both the Aviation and Transportation and Security Act of 2001 and the Transportation Security Administration itself. At that time, the fee was $2.50 per one way trip in air transportation — not to exceed five dollars per round trip — in order to pay the costs of providing commercial aviation security services for civilians. The fee encompassed all domestic and foreign air carriers originating at airports within the United States…
…but the Aviation and Transportation and Security Act was amended by Congress in 2014 with the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, which resulted in at least two significant changes:
- The legislation increased the Aviation Passenger Security Fee by more than double to $5.60 per one way trip in air transportation — not to exceed $11.20 per round trip — in 2014
- The funds generated through the increase in fees were diverted for the purpose of reducing the federal deficit
Five years later, Congress then passed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 with another $3.3 billion dollars…
…but despite the diversion of approximately one-third of the funds from those collected fees to reduce the federal deficit over the past eight years, the national debt of the United States reached $39 trillion — yes, trillion with a T — which broke an all-time record, according to Jodey Arrington. The current chairman of the budget of the House of Representatives of the United States released the following statement on Friday, March 20, 2026:
America is now $39,000,000,000,000 in debt—yes, $39 trillion. It took roughly 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion. Now we add that in a matter of months. Every child in America today carries a $530,000 share of this debt—a crushing legacy we must reverse. Compounding the problem, we now spend more than $1 trillion a year just on interest to service our debt—more than the entire defense budget and triple the amount when Biden took office. The national debt continues to pose an existential threat to the future of our nation.
Here’s the sad, sobering, and stunning truth: despite the urgency of our fiscal crisis, Congress is paralyzed—unable to meet the urgency of the moment. So, if Washington won’t act, then it’s time to look beyond our nation’s capital. The Founders gave us another path in Article V of the Constitution, empowering the states and the American people to step in and demand fiscal discipline. I’m calling on Congress to convene an Article V Convention. It’s time to restore sanity in our nation’s capital and reverse the curse looming large over this country.
More accurately, the national debt was at $39,003,000,000,000.00 and increasing at the time this article was written.
According to this fact sheet from the U.S. Travel Association, which is the national non-profit organization representing all components of the travel industry:
- The airline passenger security fee was established as a fee for security services and operations.
- The fee is instrumental in funding all aspects of aviation passenger security, from background investigations, training, salaries, and benefits for the federal security screeners and law enforcement personnel, to TSA Pre✓ and Known Crewmember programs to the Federal Air Marshals Service, to security-related capital improvements at airports, as well as the costs of security training for pilots and flight attendants and federal flight deck officers.
- Not only has this fee been instrumental in the implementation of programs by the Transportation Security Administration to facilitate the secure travel of air passengers, it has also helped to advance the core national security mission of the agency.
The majority of the passenger security fees — which are still being collected during the partial shutdown of the federal government — cannot be used to pay workers of the Transportation Security Administration because the revenue from those fees is appropriated by Congress — and most of it is not considered mandatory spending. The budget of the Transportation Security Administration is actually part of the Department of Homeland Security; so the Transportation Security Administration itself has no control over the money, which is considered discretionary spending that must be appropriated annually through government funding bills, which provide federal agencies with money to spend on their programs.
Congressional appropriators have apparently opposed proposals to continue to pay agents of the Transportation Security Administration and air traffic controllers during federal government shutdowns because of a perverse larger political power struggle: they apparently believe that if they continue to be paid, then members of the House of Representatives are not under any pressure to find a solution to whatever political dispute in which they happen to be involved at that particular moment.
Final Boarding Call
To summarize: as a traveler…
- You are paying a fee specifically for security at airports every time you purchase an airline ticket…
- …but not all of what you paid is going towards security at checkpoints at airports around the United States — instead…
- …part of that money that you paid is being used to reduce the federal deficit…
- …even though the national debt is at an all-time high and continues to increase…
- …and the people who are supposed to provide you with that security are not getting paid…
- …which is contributing to long lines at security checkpoints where you wait for hours…
- …only for you to miss your flight anyway.
This entire scenario is absolutely insanely ludicrous and cannot continue, as something has to give…
All photographs ©2020, ©2023, and ©2025 by Brian Cohen.
