> protection racket
It actually doesn't! Plenty of people never fly at all and many fly incredibly rarely. The Precheck and GE programs cost money to administer as they have to do background checks and conduct interviews. This actually accomplishes actual security goals, since it allows them to flag risky behavior and examine it.
Who benefits from these programs? Primarily heavy travelers (and optimizers like me who value their time saved more than the $24 a year). These programs also actually make everything better for everyone since I'm no longer taking up a space in the slower-moving, shoes-off line, and TSA/CBP get an actual background check done on me.
The way it is now, heavy travelers who can easily afford it, pay the full costs of the program.
Would you rather:
1. Precheck is free and paid for by all taxpayers even though a lot of people will never bother to enroll (you have to assume -- the cost is so low today that it can't be a barrier for almost anyone who can afford to fly, so it seems a ton of people can't be bothered to follow simple instructions and go get fingerprinted at Staples)
2. Precheck is eliminated and everyone has to go back to the dumb liquids-out, shoes-off thing
3. Precheck is eliminated and we just treat everyone like the Precheck people today, without doing any background checks. Basically like pre-9/11.