Clearly, using political sequestration as a political maneuver to stimulate political compromise would definitely be contrary to what our Founding Fathers would have envisioned as to how political parties should try to resolve differences. That’s because doing that runs contrary to their concept of ‘public virtue’ which was one of the four Freedom Foundations that the writing of our Constitution was founded upon. Public virtue speaks to the need a democratic republic has for its members to voluntarily sacrifice personal benefit for something greater than themselves. It means political leaders and citizens alike must understand they are part of society. That society has needs that are greater than any individual’s or party gain.

Besides, political sequestration runs contrary to what our civil servants, (politicians), were elected to do. They were elected to resolve their differences as amicably and expeditiously as they can. That can only be done  by making compromises so that budget sequestration would not be necessary. The reason that’s important is because otherwise, with political sequestration, spending cuts are made in an automatic and arbitrary way to meet the budget requirements for the year 2013. Therefore, individual programs and agencies would suffer unnecessarily because no careful, thoughtful deliberation was used before cutting decisions were made, and with other agendas and departments, less or no cuts would be made, which may be contrary to what was fair and equable.

Our representatives were elected to serve and protect our Constitution, which means ALL Americans, not just the political party they belonged to. To the extent that the two political parties are warring against one another at their fellow Americans’ expense, resulting in political sequestration, is so contrary to what serving our country should be all about.

The furloughing of traffic control operators was done to meet the budget restrictions to conform to the sequestration demands to trim the budget.

As announced, in less than 24 hours, on April 26, 2013, bipartisan legislation was passed by both the Senate and the House to relieve a most onerous flight passenger hardship due to sequestration: FAA furloughs –  which led to severe flight delays and in some cases, flight cancellations. This move would allow the traffic control workforce to be fully staffed again, thus no longer needing to continue furloughing operators to meet the sequestration demands required by the Congressional budget office.

The passing of this bill occurred so quickly that the version the Senate voted on had an ending paragraph that was handwritten; the president had to delay signing it because there was a spelling error. It’s obvious Congress was eager to get out of town for their week’s recess and I’m sure, for many, they didn’t want any of their recess foreshortened by any necessary delays that may have occurred if debating the issue in both chambers was required before bipartisan agreement could possibly be achieved.

Unlike what our Founding Fathers would have done, where they would have put country before self, the majority of politicians have put self and party before country – otherwise, members of Congress would have stayed in D.C. that week and formed a plan to deal with sequestration in its entirety.

As I mention in my book What Would Our Founding Fathers Say?:How Today’s Leaders Have Lost Their Way, “In order to get bills passed in both houses of Congress, it’s the responsibility of Congressional members to enter the arena of public discourse with a spirit of cooperation. That can only happen if the members view being elected to Congress as being an honor and privilege to serve their country.”

“If members of Congress feel either for or against a bill prior to the vote, it’s up to those members to use their political powers of persuasion to convince the opposition of the error of their ways.” The only way that’s going to be achieved is if they come together with a spirit of cooperation and goodwill, where they feel they are working toward something greater than themselves, and most certainly, greater than their political parties.

“Only by leaving their political armor at the door can they have an honest and vigorous debate of the bill’s merits and ultimately come up with happy compromises satisfactory to both sides of the aisle. If that happens, we all win, and our country is all the better for it.”