I love peanut butter. But not on budget cuts. A peanut-butter-spread approach to cutting federal spending will only make high-performing, effective programs less high-performing, and low-performing programs more ineffective.

Both effects will serve to demoralize the whole work force — managers and employees — who attempt to deliver value to the taxpayer every day. Across-the-board budgets cuts demonstrate that our leaders do not have the courage to prioritize and explain their choices to the voters. This is non-performance, aka the sequester. Clearly, no one interested in delivering value wants the sequester.

Congress: Vote to end the sequester now. Then, go back to the Simpson-Bowles recommendations, make some hard choices, and vote for actual, reasoned cuts that also allow for investment in our future.

The writer lives in Myrtle Beach.