The longest government shutdown in US history created significant disruptions. A second partial government shutdown occurred when lawmakers could not agree on Department of Homeland Security funding. There is nothing in place to prevent future government shutdowns, given the ongoing chaos fomented by the administration and the legislative dysfunction in Washington.
If there is any silver lining, any time the federal government shutdowns, it demonstrates why many if its responsibilities cannot be disrupted. This provides an incentive to privatize more government services with public-private partnerships to fulfill its obligations to the American people.
The role of the federal government can be broken down into two broad functions: the delivery of services to the American people, and the collection of data that measures the condition of the nation so that appropriate services can be created and delivered. Such data also informs the crafting of laws and allows their impact to be measured.
One area that is significantly impacted during government shutdowns are air travel. Both air traffic controllers and transportation security officers show up to do their job as essential workers, yet do not receive a paycheck for their efforts. Legislation was put forward to ensure that all essential workers get paid in the event of a government shutdown. Though this sounds appropriate and necessary, it is nothing more than a bandage on a festering cancer within government functions.
Every person who purchases an airplane ticket pays government-imposed taxes.
These taxes (or fees) are designed to cover some of the costs of the air travel infrastructure, including air traffic control and airport security. They include the Passenger Facility Charge, the Passenger Ticket (Excise) Tax, the Flight Segment Tax, and the September 11th tax. These taxes, excluding the September 11th tax, fund part of the Federal Aviation Administration budget. The same holds true with the September 11th tax supporting the Transportation Security Administration. Yet one-third of the September 11th tax is diverted to the Treasury’s General Fund.
All this tax money, which comes directly from air travelers, can and should support air travel. Yet by keeping air traffic control and airport security totally housed within the government, lawmakers can tap into these funds for unrelated travel projects as they see fit.
Public-private partnerships for both airport security and air traffic control have precedents both domestically and globally.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is responsible for security at over 400 federalized airports in the US. These airports can have their security screening operations privatized through the TSA Screening Partnership Program. The TSA sets security screening standards and provides oversight, with a private contractor conducting security operations. The largest airports where security has been privatized include San Francisco International and Kansas City International. To date, there have been no reported security breaches at these airports, suggesting that privatization has not created additional security risks. Moreover, security checkpoint waiting times at San Francisco International are in line with other large international airports.
Canada created NAV Canada in 1996, a not-for-profit private entity responsible for air traffic control across their nation. Their air traffic controller training programs are as demanding as the US programs. They are also rated amongst the top 100 employers in Canada. Of course, the volume of travelers in Canada is around one-fifth of the volume of travelers in the US. Moreover, the US is home to several of the busiest airports in the world, hence scale could be an issue. Nonetheless, exploring the Canadian air traffic control model in the US should be a priority.
What public-private partnerships for airport security and air traffic control would do is untether some of these operations from federal government bureaucracy, which is on full display during government shutdowns. Moreover, it has the potential to protect some of the passenger ticket fees and taxes from lawmakers and allow these funds to be assigned for their intended purposes.
There are around 2.9 million federal workers, a number that has been mostly flat for 40 years. Yet there are even more federal contractors or grant employees, de facto private workers fulfilling the responsibilities of the government. This means that the US government is already partially privatized.
What remains is a systemized process to explore how even more government services and functions can be privatized in a manner that enables all necessary services to be delivered and data to be collected. The greatest obstacle for such a transformation may be legislative inertia, an unwillingness to do things differently, and not surprisingly, resistance from the union that represents federal workers.
Government has services to deliver and data to collect; that is its responsibility to the American people. The time is ripe to explore additional avenues to privatize more of these activities.