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President has little choice in making cuts

In his March 26 letter to the editor, “Spending shows lack of leadership,” Robert Kennedy shows a severe misunderstanding of the sequester.

In his letter, Mr. Kennedy questions why President Obama has continued to give foreign aid while at the same time making domestic budget cuts that hurt Americans.

In order to make the sequester as devastating and unappealing as possible, there is very little leeway allowed in the across-the-board cuts. Indeed, according to a post on The Washington Post’s Wonkblog, legislators don’t have any discretion with regards to where the cuts take place: They are intended to hit all affected programs equally.

The answer, then, to Mr. Kennedy’s question has less to do with a supposed “lack of leadership” and more to do with the rules of the sequester itself, which was passed by a bipartisan majority in Congress.

Joe Timmerman

Mundelein

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