After weeks of long lines at airports and bickering in Congress, Transportation Security Administration agents began to receive pay earlier this week thanks to an executive order by President Donald Trump.
Trump’s move to bypass Congress — which under the U.S. Constitution is granted power over federal spending — and unilaterally pay the airport security agents is a momentary reprieve. Negotiations over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut down since February, are largely stalled while Congress is on recess for two weeks.
The paychecks raise a series of questions: Where does the money Trump is using come from? How much is available? And for how long can Trump continue to pay TSA agents if Congress doesn’t soon come to a deal?
Trump’s executive order directs Homeland Security secretary and the White House Office of Management and Budget director “to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown.”
The Trump administration has confirmed the money is coming from last year’s Republican tax and spending bill, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
