Remember Donald Trump’s oft-repeated guarantee during the recent presidential race to construct a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and force Mexico to pay for it?
The wall stays on Trump’s schedule, although no one seriously believes it’ll be funded by Mexican pesos. It’s looking as American travelers could end up underwriting much of the price of the wall.
In an early draft of the Trump government’s budget proposal, reviewed by Politico, the Office of Management and Budget is asking for an 11 percent cut into the TSA, another 11 percent cut in FEMA, along with a $1.3 billion cut in the Coast Guard.
That’s the exact same TSA that was understaffed and mismanaged that bottlenecks at airport security checkpoints were resulting in tens of thousands of flight delays and missed flights, millions of millions numbers of travelers. It had been news in the moment, and if the bureau’s budget is cut and staffing reduced it’s bound to turn into news.
Adding insult to injury, Travel Weekly reports that the proposed Department of Homeland Security budget forecasts for an increase of their 9/11 Passenger Security Fee, assessed airline tickets, from $5.60 to $6.60 per one-time flight. That is an 18 percent increase in a fee that partly funds.
Bottom line: Shops will pay more and getting less, to be able to pay for a boundary wall that’s been derided as an overpriced vanity job.
The budget will not be published until May, at which point it’ll debated and discussed before being delivered for approval to Congress. Travelers can just hope that their interests are represented in the budget’s final form.
Reader Reality Check
Do you prefer paying, indirectly or directly, for Trump’s wall?