Unhappy birthday, TSA: bureaucracy turns 10.

• Author: Riggs, Mike
• Position: Citings - United States Transportation Security Administration - Brief article

IN NOVEMBER, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) marked its 10th birthday. To celebrate, House Republicans released a report saying that the agency suffers from bureaucratic bloat, cost overruns, high staff turnover, mission creep, and a lack of preparedness. It was not, in other words, a happy birthday.

"Since 200l, TSA staff has grown from 16,500 to over 65,000, a near-400 percent increase," the report notes. "In the same amount of time, total passenger enplanements in the U.S. have increased less than 12 percent." The agency has 3,986 administrative staff members at its D.C.-area headquarters and 9,656 administrators in the field, which means it employs as many paper pushers today as total staffers in 2001.

As bloated as the TSA's ranks appear...