Privatizing security at the nation's airports will alleviate the chaos passengers are facing, as leaving the security entirely up to the government involves bureaucracy that becomes even worse with unions, Rep. Darrell Issa said Thursday.
"Clearly when you look at a failed organization, you ask why would it be better some other way," said the California lawmaker, who is a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee,
told CNN's "New Day" co-host Alisyn Camerota.
"When you go to San Francisco, where they have and always have had this private public partnership, what you find is it's better. In one of the most liberal cities in America, they have less government workers, more private workers being supervised by TSA officials at the top."
Airports have peak times, Issa, who
wrote a column for CNN on the issue earlier this week, pointed out. Further, he said a private system would allow for more flexibility, while still meeting travelers' requirements.
"When you unionize government [workers] it's going to be more bureaucratic," Issa said. "When you take an industry that needs to surge, that needs to rise and fall, but you don't have flexibility in the work force it's going to be inefficient."
Meanwhile, he said, TSA workers are on the job as government workers full-time, meaning that they either work eight hours a day or not at all, and that causes problems with airport security.
"When you look at the private sector solutions, one of the things they'll do is they'll hire some part-time people, retirees, and others who are happy to have these jobs, or they'll shift people from completely different jobs at peak times," said Issa. "This improves morale, lowers turnover, which is incredibly important when you're trying to have people do repetitive jobs."
But, Issa said, his ideas are being opposed by those who want to support large amounts of government workers and a central union.
"They're going to fight us, but I think the passengers who see better safety, shorter lines and according to the GAO [Government Accountability Office] at least a billion dollars in savings are on our side, that this isn't about people losing jobs," said Issa. "This is about moving to a system that works in some places that have been allowed to have it and expanding allowing more places to have it sooner."
Further, he said that privatizing airport security would not eliminate the TSA, but would leave a safety organization at the top to make sure contractors are held to a high standard.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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