Sure it is. Do you remember post 9/11. Nobody traveled by air. The Airlines were all talking about having to declare bankruptcy. Then the government stepped

Sure it is. Do you remember post 9/11. Nobody traveled by air. The Airlines were all talking about having to declare bankruptcy. Then the government stepped in. If nothing else, the government helped subsidize and protect the airline industry (in the case of the TSA, in only a "relatively" small way) by paying for jobs that airports and airlines used to pay for. So the government paid for security so that the airlines and airports didn't have too. The liability argument is a farce that was taken care of almost immediately afterwards, and regardless, it's still a jobs program. If you kill two birds with one stone, all the better. So if the TSA is not a jobs program, I don't know what is.