Trump Wants To Privatize TSA, And So Did Project 2025. Coincidence?
Now that funding has finally been approved for TSA workers, most of whom worked for more than 40 days without receiving paychecks, President Donald Trump is turning the calamity — which was part of the second government shutdown to happen during his second term — into an opportunity to privatize the Transportation Security Administration, which, by the way, happened to be an agenda laid out in Project 2025.
According to Reuters, White House budget documents indicate that the Trump administration wants to cut more than $1.5 billion from TSA funding and cut 9,400 jobs from the agency, which currently employs approximately 60,000 people, because it believes private security screeners will do a more efficient job.
“The airports that already use this program have demonstrated savings compared to Federal screening operations,” the White House budget documents state. “The move would yield cost savings compared to Federal screening and begin reform of a troubled Federal agency.”
Mind you, this comes from the same administration that thought it could super tariff the nation into prosperity and make us a manufacturing hub, and that data on the price of Walmart and DoorDash meals, which the administration either misread or misrepresented (or both — probably both), was proof that Trump saved the U.S. economy.
It might be true that some airports that used privatized security reported shorter lines caused by the partial government shutdown, but it’s worth noting that those privatized security companies probably didn’t have their employees working without pay. Just a thought.
At any rate, union leaders and other experts believe privatizing TSA could compromise traveler safety.
“It’s very important that people understand what privatization is,” Johnny Jones, secretary treasurer for AFGE TSA Council 100, told CNN. “It has nothing to do with your security or your safety. It has everything to do with somebody making a profit.”
The Trump administration tried its best to push the narrative that Democrats were responsible for the partial shutdown, just as it did during the full shutdown last year, but it is Trump who rejected a bipartisan plan to pay TSA workers amid the shutdown, because Democrats wouldn’t agree to fund ICE, because he refused to sign any legislation at all until Congress passes the SAVE Act, and because he just generally didn’t want to work with the Democratic Party.
Now, Trump is using the mess he failed to prevent as an opportunity to push for what he already said he wanted, what the MAGA-controlled Congress had already proposed legislation for, and what was included in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s elaborate brain fart, which Trump previously claimed he had nothing to do with, despite the way it continues to mirror his policies, including but not limited to the dismantling of the Department of Education.
Trump’s agendas are and have always been driven by ideology and self-interest, not what’s best for the nation. There’s just no reason to believe his plan to privatize the TSA is any different.
SEE ALSO:
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