Thousands of travelers across the country missed flights this past week as more and more Transportation Security Administration employees failed to show up to work because they haven’t been paid for almost three weeks. Ideally, Democrats would come to their senses, drop their attacks on federal immigration law enforcement, and fund the Department of Homeland Security entirely. But even after this most recent government shutdown is resolved, more airports should consider abandoning TSA screening and hiring private security instead. Congress should help them do it.

When Congress created the TSA in the wake of 9/11, it failed to consider the costs and benefits of turning airport security into a federal monopoly. Before DHS existed, just over 16,000 private security employees screened passengers nationwide. The TSA replaced them with more than 40,000 federal workers, a number that has since swelled to 55,000 at an annual cost of $12 billion.