Norris responded that the majority of air marshals are professionals who are dedicated to the job.

"We're out there ready to put our lives on the line to defend everybody on that aircraft and anybody else who could possibly be harmed, so it's disappointing to us when people choose to focus on that (misconduct)," she said.

Duncan stressed that he has never had any run-ins with an air marshal and said he doesn't even know anyone who works for the program. Regardless, he believes the government needs to be more reasonable in its security spending. He'd like to see the Air Marshal Service abolished, although he doesn't expect that to happen anytime soon.

"The problem is, nobody wants to vote against anything that has the word security attached to it," he said. "Well, we're going ridiculously overboard. Even if we spend the entire federal budget on security, we couldn't make life totally, completely safe."

On Wednesday, Duncan saw his contention proved right on the House floor. His amendment to freeze the agency's 2010 budget at the current level instead of giving it a proposed $40 million increase was shot down by a vote of 294-134 as the House wrestled with, and later approved, the program's $860 million budget for next year as part of the broader spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security.

"I just think this $860 million that we are about to appropriate for them would be much better spent on almost anything that you can think of," he said. "There are hundreds of other good things, maybe even thousands, that money could be spent on. I just think it's a total waste."

E-mail Michael Collins at collinsm@shns.com.