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Actually, all of the meaningful parts of the TSA (the security checkpoints with basic metal detectors, the no-fly list, and the in-flight security) were already in place before the TSA was established; they were just performed by independent security firms (contracted by each airport), by the FAA, and by the FBI.
Further, security and screening of almost every kind has a bias toward the attack vector of the most recent attack; it sucks across the board at coming up with new possible vectors. That means that, if the TSA had been in operation two months earlier, they likely wouldn't have caught the terrorists' weapons either (small blades and pepper spray), because they didn't know to look for them then either.
The only reason that the TSA might've caught the September 11 hijackers is that the FBI and CIA individually had intelligence that, if put together, could've identified the hijackers early and added them to the FAA's no-fly list; and the TSA might have facilitated better communication between those agencies.
Which means that the only arguable benefit that the TSA has brought to transportation security in America is coordination and standardization between entities and across airports throughout the US--which isn't explicitly a part of the TSA's mandate and could've been accomplished by a computer network.
Presumably airport security cost something (whether funded by fares or taxes) before the TSA - do we know how it compares?