I'm almost positive they get paid the same at the end of the day either way and the $45 just lines the pockets of someone on the top.
Though they might not do that either.
1. They're not doing screening. The screening comes later. At this stage, they're attempting to identify someone. That has never been the job. The job is to prevent guns, knives, swollen batteries, or anything else that could be a safety threat during air travel.
2. Regardless, the reality is that they do identify travelers. Even so, the job has not changed. If you don't present sufficient identification, they will identify you through other mechanisms. The only thing the new dictate says is that they don't want this document, they want that document.
A job that by their own internal testing, they do well less than 5% of the time (some of their audits showed that 98% of fake/test guns that were sent through TSA got through checkpoints).
Thats why cashless businesses exist, why you pay more for things that involve human attention instead of automated online solutions etc.
https://www.clearlypayments.com/blog/interchange-fees-by-cou...
or tax fraud, otherwise cashless is obviously cheaper