They’re easy targets. Jim Rooney, who oversees the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, makes $276,000. Outgoing Massport manager, Thomas Kinton, makes $295,000 – and will pocket a cool $495,000 payout for unused sick time. Coming right out of the hide of taxpayers.

This column asks rhetorically, “Who thinks the head of the airport should make twice as much as the governor? ”

But that’s the WRONG question.

Similarly, it is wrong to compare salaries of heads of state bureaucracies with the salaries of heads of other states’ bureaucracies. Neither is competitive. Or as Michael Cloud likes to say, comparing governments is like looking for the soberest drunk in a bar.

It makes even less sense to compare an agency head’s salary with that of a governor, who spends millions to get elected. They pay dearly for the privilege of enacting laws and indulging of the many perks of being a powerful politician.

Rather, the questions should be:

1. What is the job of running an airport or a convention center worth? If you posted it on Craig’s List for $80,000 (don’t even include the usual lavish government employee benefits), would plenty of qualified people step forward happy to take the job? There’s a lot of very skilled managers looking for work right now.

What usually “qualifies” a person for a politically-appointed job is their allegiance to the political powers-that-be.

But managing airports, convention centers and parking lots should be based only on relevant management skills that would be needed to do these jobs in the PRIVATE sector.

2. Should the salary actually be $0? That is to say, should the job – or the agency – even exist?

What on earth is the state doing in the business of building convention centers anyway? Especially since its track record for building them at a reasonable cost and turning a profit is abysmal. (Pioneer Institute published a good analysis on this topic.)

Try this: Sell off all state-owned convention centers, get the state out of the business, and let the marketplace decide what the job is worth – or if the property should be sold off for another use.

There’s a long list of state-owned properties, especially in Boston, that should be sold – along with their unnecessary, overpriced and ineffective bureaucracies. Let the free market determine where money should go and where jobs should be created (at market prices, not inflated prices).

As with any spending cut, the saving should be realized by the taxpayer alone – not horded in state coffers. Proceeds from the sale of assets should be used to pay off existing government debt, thus reducing debt payments. Total government spending should be reduced by both (a) the amount saved in debt payments and (2) the agency’s operating costs – with commensurate cuts in broad-based taxes.

If we don’t cut total government spending and total tax revenues, politicians will merely gobble up the savings and spend them on other Big Government boondoggles – and we will make no headway whatsoever.

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Allow each airline to set its own policies such as:

• Whether to require screening of passengers and baggage and what screening methods to use
• How to protect passengers on board. For example, one airline may train and arm flight crews to provide protection. Another may allow passengers to be armed for self-defense. Yet another may prohibit all arms and rely instead on screening of passengers and baggage.

Having options lets customers decide what level of cost, delays and intrusion they are willing to tolerate in exchange for added security by choosing the airlines whose policies suit them best.

Airlines should also be permitted to fully arm their own security personnel on the tarmac and in terminals (which was NOT permitted at Logan Airport on 9/11) so they are ready to take down a terrorist.

To offset the reduction in spending after eliminating the TSA, we can cut federal taxes. One option is to reduce income tax rates so that the total income tax levy goes down by $7 billion, which is what the TSA now costs every year. Another option is to reduce airport fees imposed on airlines and passengers, which will drive down the cost of flying.

Eliminating the TSA, freeing up airlines to protect their customers and cutting taxes will:

• Make it more difficult for mastermind terrorists as well as amateur shoe bombers to board planes
• Make crew and passengers better prepared to thwart an attack during a flight, making airline passengers more safe and secure.
• Allow Americans to decide for themselves what level of intrusion into their privacy is effective and worth surrendering in exchange for more safety measures.
• Save taxpayers an average of $70 – every year.
• Make air travel faster and more convenient
• Spare passengers from embarrassing and invasive encounters with TSA personnel at the airport

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