The Senate and House approved last-minute funding to eliminate the furloughs of air traffic controllers that have created airport delays across the country. But the deal should never have been necessary. The FAA cuts are part of the Obama administration's sequester gambit to maximize public pain, in everything from student White House tours to public housing programs, to force House Republicans to raise taxes as part of a broad fiscal agreement.

The legislative action should be a signal that it's time for the White House to use its legal authority to manage sequester cuts across all departments to minimize their public impact.

Senate Democrats abandoned the White House after their constituents howled over flight delays that reached two hours in some airports. In addition, senators and representatives were flying back to their districts this weekend and wanted to address the airport crisis before facing further blowback at home.

"This was a manufactured problem by the administration," said U.S. Rep. Dave Camp. "This was playing politics with air safety issues."

With irreconcilable budget differences between Democrats and Republicans, this spring's sequester spending cutbacks were inevitable — but where those cuts would fall were not.

Yet, despite flexibility built into the sequester law, the Obama administration has insisted on applying the cuts in a way that hurts the public the most. That's not good government.

In addition to air-controller furloughs punishing travelers and airline bottom lines, the sequester cuts have indiscriminately hit Meals on Wheels recipients through Department of Health and Human Services cuts, needy court defendants through Department of Justice furloughs of public defenders, and low-income families receiving Section 8 public housing vouchers.

Must Capitol Hill pass special funding for every departmental need?

No, says a bipartisan legal review conducted for Delta Airlines that challenged the administration's meat cleaver approach.

The airline has laid out legal arguments, written by solicitors general who served the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, that the White House has more leeway than it admits.

In the case of air-traffic controller furloughs, for example, the FAA should be able to "pick and choose how to reduce spending within the air traffic organization activity so as to minimize the adverse effects of sequestration on the FAA's core mission priorities," wrote ex-Clinton counsel Seth Waxman.

The legal findings echo those of Washington lawmakers who say that the FAA deliberately targeted busy airports to disrupt travel.

"The FAA has made zero effort to avoid furloughs," wrote Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. "Instead of curtailing subsidies for 'Airports to Nowhere' that serve fewer than 10 passengers a day, the FAA is choosing to collectively punish the American people through furloughs. The FAA has 32,000 employees that are not air traffic controllers ... speechwriters, administrative staff, congressional affairs staff, community planners, and other employees that aren't immediately critical to FAA's mission."

The same goes for other departments where the administration can axe spending for, say, robotic squirrel research, while maintaining essential services.

The Senate and House have sensibly acted to get America flying. It's a welcome sight.

REPRINTED FROM THE DETROIT NEWS