WASHINGTON, April 27 (UPI) -- President Obama and the Democrats are to blame for furloughs of air traffic controllers that delayed flights, a Republican congressman charged Saturday.
Rep. Bill Shuster, delivering the GOP's weekly media address, said the layoffs were caused by "bad policy" -- across the board budget cuts from sequestration, ABC News Radio reported.
Charging such a practice was "the wrong way to reduce the deficit," the Pennsylvania Republican noted that Congress approved a temporary solution to the flight delays on Friday, restructuring $600 million in FAA cuts, The Hill said.
The president has said he will sign the bill.
The solution shouldn't have taken so long, he said.
Shuster, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, charged "there are some in the Obama administration who thought inflicting pain on the public would give the president more leverage to avoid making necessary spending cuts, and to impose more tax hikes on the American people."
He said sequestration needed to be replaced with "smarter, more responsible cuts."
In his weekly address Saturday, Obama called Congress' bill to fix the FAA cuts "a Band-Aid."
"It's not a responsible way to govern," he said of the sequestration. "There is only one way to truly fix the sequester: by replacing it before it causes further damage."
