Airline passengers around the country are complaining that they're waiting up to two hours to clear security checkpoints so they can board their flights. As late-spring travel begins to peak, thousands of passengers are missing their flights because of long waiting lines.

The degrading experience of having to partially disrobe and submit to invasive bodily inspection by Transportation Security Administration screeners is bad enough. But having to wait two hours for it adds insult to injury. But don't blame TSA for the heightened disgruntlement.

The problem is that there aren't anywhere near enough screeners on hand at major airports, especially during peak travel times. And Congress absolutely must share the blame.

Airline passenger volume has jumped nearly 12 percent since 2011, but TSA hasn't come close to matching the increase by boosting its staffing. In fact, the number of airport screeners has declined by 5,300 since 2011 — a 12 percent decrease.

TSA's directors could have realigned budget priorities to hire more screeners, but Congress has directly intervened to prevent the agency from diverting funds from other crucial TSA functions to cover staffing shortages and reduce long airport lines. TSA says it will hire 768 more screeners by June 15, but that's not going to cover the staffing shortfall.

Passengers pay a $5.60 fee for every segment they fly on a trip, which adds up to billions of dollars a year that, logical people might think, should go to fund TSA.

But no. Congress has diverted about one-sixth of the TSA budget to cover unrelated government expenses such as deficit reduction and highway projects. This year that diversion has cost TSA $1.25 billion.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, convened hearings of his House Oversight Committee recently to get to the bottom of the problem. He hauled TSA's top official in to testify. He should have summoned his fellow congressmen instead.

Chaffetz suggests that bad TSA leadership is to blame, noting that Kelly Hoggan, the recently fired assistant administrator for the Office of Security Operations, had received $90,000 in bonuses over a 13-month period despite significant security lapses revealed in an audit report. Fake weapons and explosives made it past TSA screeners 95 percent of the time in 70 covert tests.

TSA has tightened security as a result. But not so much as to cause the long lines developing daily at airports. Nor would Hoggan's $90,000 bonus explain it. A $1.25 billion budget reduction probably gets us closer to the real culprit.

There's no good reason for these ridiculous passenger inconveniences and delays. The traveling public pays an extra fee on every airline ticket for the privilege of being scanned, prodded, patted and poked. Now they're being pickpocketed, too.

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Photo credit: Bill Abbott