Megan Stephenson’s article on the furlough affecting defense employees put a needed focus on how “all politics is local” (“One family’s struggle with the furlough,” page A1, July 26 Herald). It’s incredibly difficult to adjust to a loss of one-fifth of your income.

However, the article states, “The Navy’s budget was cut, like many other government departments, because of sequestration.” There’s an important distinction to be made here. The Navy’s budget was not cut. Like everywhere else, there has merely been a reduction in planned spending increases. When you increase spending more slowly, that is not a cut, because spending is still going up.

The effect at the national level is that we have gone from borrowing 35 cents on every dollar we spend to 33 cents. This is still entirely too much. The unfortunate effect is what we see with the Simon family, and this will not be the last of it so long as the people in D.C. cannot get their priorities straight.

John Bradford
Poulsbo