[pmorici]

Not to call out your comment specifically but I've always been curious why when people advocate against government spending on one thing they always feel the need to say it would have been better spent on something else as apposed to just not spending it at all. The general argument seems esp. perverse in light of the fact that the US Government is so far in the hole in terms of both total debt and yearly deficit.

[fjorder]

It's a way to point out how wasteful spending on the TSA has become. People lack intuition for numbers on the scale we are talking about. Does $8.71 billion seem huge compared to $8.70 billion? (I'd sure like to be making $0.01 Billion a year!) By suggesting something specific be done with the funds one can give some impression of the potential that is being wasted.

For the record, I'm not disputing the fact that airport security is ncessary. I'm just arguing that it's only good in moderation. The TSA is both too intrusive for the security they provide and extremely wasteful. Back-scatter X-ray machines are a great example of this. The first models used were not adequately tested and proved to be easily defeated. The solution? Replace them, at tremendous expense, with a new generation of machines that have also not been adequately tested. At the same time, x-ray back-scatter vans are being rolled out on a truly alarming scale. It's a cash bonanza for someone!

[dredmorbius]

Economic allocation means that if you're not spending time and treasury to one end, you're spending it on another. Now, if you want to advocate private-sector spending as opposed to public, that's fine. However economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources.

The comparison of budgets among different programs is helpful to provide perspective (though both TSA and NASA are minor components of the Federal budget overall) -- 0.22% and 0.5% respectively -- the US Federal budget is huge: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2011/0119-...)

[knowaveragejoe]

Note economic stimulus resultant from the space race. Compare with the money being spent that actually ends up slowing economic activity.

[logn]

I think we could cut the budget significantly by dismantling our surveillance state and cutting useless law enforcement (TSA, drug warriors, etc.). But people seem to feel better cutting something like social security and medicare which we pay into.

[darkarmani]

It's hard to see the impact of not spending the money, but it is easy to see the benefit of spending the exact same money towards something that actually gives a return on investment.