Airport security already paid for
In response to your May 25 editorial on long lines at airports caused by security checkpoints, I submit that the answer is, “Yes, we do want security at the airport, and yes we are already paying for it”.
In 2013, Congress increased the airline security fee for each ticket sold to $5.60 and thereafter diverted a third of the revenue to the general fund for other purposes, presumably to help to address the burgeoning federal budget deficit or perhaps to fund yet another of the Obama administration’s feel-good programs. This tax, paid by the traveling public, raised $3.5 billion in 2015 and, as a result of this revenue diversion, more than $1 billion went to the federal government’s general fund.
When an airline passenger looks at their ticket and sees the $5.60 security tax, I would suggest he or she would logically conclude that $1.87 went to support the federal general-fund deficit and the balance, $3.73 went to fund airport security which was inadequate, hence the security delays.
But didn’t these consumers already pay their federal taxes with an April 18 deadline? Your editorial states that lawmakers and taxpayers have two choices, “Either we pay the price and fly with greater assurance that comes with exacting security measures, or revert back to something that approximates pre-9/11 (security measures)”. Here is third choice: Use the airline ticket taxes already collected for the purpose for which they were collected, and quit trying to offset the deliberate budget deficits on the back of those who have already paid their general-fund taxes.
James M. Frazier
McDonald