Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has warned travelers that they should start bracing for longer delays at airports if spending continues to be cut by Congress.
Napolitano told listeners that you can sometimes do more with having less, but sometimes you reach a point where only less can be done with less. She warned that, that point is quickly approaching for airport security.
Napolitano leaves her cabinet post today. She resigned to accept the position as head of the entire University of California education system.
She said that Homeland Security had to move money to different agencies and draw down on some accounts to help deal with the spending cuts that were across the board starting this past January.
Federal agencies are trying to figure out what to do about the cuts if they are extended on October 1 into the next fiscal year.
Nevertheless, reductions in government spending have already caused waits in airports to lengthen. At the Customs and Border Protection points throughout the U.S., the lines have become longer than ever before.
The average wait in line peaked at over three hours during this past summer at the busiest hours of the day in international airports like JFK in New York and Miami International Airport.
In the Transportation Department, furloughs for one week for many air traffic controllers caused thousands of U.S. flights to be delayed during April, before U.S. lawmakers moved some funding from one construction account to cover the entire pay for the controllers through the end of September.
However, Congress still has to settle on budgeting for the new fiscal year that begins October 1. More spending cuts, as well as a temporary shutdown of the government, are a possibility.
Napolitano warned on her last day in office that more cuts would lower the amount of personnel who are able to provide services that are relied upon by travelers.
