Sen. Paul invokes TSA in budget deal opposition

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) invoked the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) controversial pat-down hand searches in his opposition to the budget deal announced Tuesday.

Paul tweeted a picture of a TSA agent searching an airline passage with the message: “In the Ryan-Murray budget ‘deal’ you will now have to pay more for THIS.”

“#OnlyInDC is it a good idea to pay more for this,” the picture says.

{mosads}The budget deal negotiated by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) includes an increase in the fees paid by airline passengers for airport security from $2.50 per trip to $5.60.

The money from the fee is normally used to help pay for the TSA, but the Murray-Ryan bill redirects the collections to the federal government’s general fund.

The aviation security fee increase is a part of a package of new revenue scheduled to replace $63 billion in automatic spending cuts that were included in the sequestration budget law.