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Welcome to The Logoff: The US air travel situation is looking up — for now.
What’s happening? TSA agents received paychecks today for the first time in more than a month, easing the burden of the ongoing Homeland Security shutdown and alleviating long security lines at major US airports.
Where is the money coming from? DHS still doesn’t have funding, but President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday directing that TSA agents be paid anyway, as airport security lines began to reach crisis proportions.
The paychecks covered some, but not all, of the back pay owed to agents due to the shutdown and were reportedly paid out of money allocated to DHS under last year’s reconciliation package (Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”).
As CNN has reported, it’s unclear whether that kind of unilateral direction of funding is legal, but paychecks are flowing regardless.
What’s the context? This is the second time a prolonged government shutdown has resulted in the Trump administration going around Congress to pay federal employees. Last year, during a much broader, record-long shutdown, Trump redirected Defense Department money to pay US troops. (Military paychecks have not been affected this time, since DOD has been funded by Congress.)
What’s the big picture? Monday’s paychecks are a big deal for the tens of thousands of TSA employees who have been going without, as well as for America’s beleaguered air travel system. But they’re more of a Band-Aid than a permanent fix.
Specifically, while we don’t know exactly where the Trump administration is getting the money for TSA paychecks, it’s not going to last forever; at some point, Congress will still need to fund TSA and the rest of DHS, with or without ICE and CBP.
There’s also an underlying problem: These kinds of funding lapses are getting more and more frequent. Even if Congress gets this shutdown sorted out soon, we’re likely to be staring down another before we know it.
And with that, it’s time to log off…
My colleague Allie Volpe — arguably the unofficial patron saint of logging off — is a font of good advice about living life. For her latest story, she spoke with an expert, Professor Gillian Sandstrom, about how, and why, you should talk with strangers. You can read their conversation here.
Have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!
