Americans flying this week are being given a raw reminder of what happens when Washington treats working families as bargaining chips. Multiple TSA screeners told Forbes that the agency has been using “strong-arm tactics” to discourage sick calls during a three-week government shutdown, even as the agency braces for a jump in absenteeism when the first full paycheck is missed on Friday.
This isn’t just bureaucratic posturing — it’s management bullying frontline public servants who show up every day to keep our airports safe. Forcing or intimidating TSA officers to work without pay is a moral outrage and a practical failure; it betrays those who put themselves between citizens and true threats while politicians trade hostage-taking for headlines.
Let’s be clear: tired, unpaid, and demoralized screeners mean longer lines, frayed nerves, and potential security lapses at America’s airports. When hardworking Americans facing children to feed and mortgages to pay decide to protect their families by staying home, that is the predictable outcome of a government that chose shutdown over compromise.
The people responsible for this chaos are not the TSA officers who showed up through thick and thin — they are the politicians who engineered a shutdown and the agency managers who punish employees for a crisis they didn’t create. Washington’s elites play brinksmanship while everyday citizens pay the price; this is exactly the kind of leadership failure conservatives warned about.
Republicans and Democrats alike should be ashamed that our national security and travel system are being jeopardized to score political points. The only acceptable response is to reopen the government, restore pay immediately, and hold accountable any official who used coercion against federal workers doing their duty.
Hardworking Americans deserve better than theater and threats from the federal bureaucracy and its political masters. End the shutdown, pay the people who protect us, and stop treating public servants as pawns — anything less is a betrayal of the country and the rule of common-sense government.
