Are the FAA Air Traffic Control Furloughs a Political Stunt?

Politics or Necessity?
Recent FAA furloughs have begun to take effect due to budget "cuts" (they're not actually cuts, they're smaller increases in spending than was asked for) in Washington.  Stories have started to emerge about delays in air traffic due to the shortage of necessary air traffic control personnel.  Many people believe that this is just a political stunt handed down by the Obama administration to get the American public to reconsider its stance on the new budget restrictions.  Let's see if that's true.
The 2013 fiscal year budget estimates for the Federal Aviation Administration is freely available on the Department of Transportation's web page here: http://www.dot.gov/sites/dot.dev/files/docs/faa_%20fy_%202013_budget_estimate.pdf and will be referred to in the sections below.
Facilities and Equipment
The first section of the FAA budget proposal is Facilities and Equipment.  Most of the mentions in this section are for critical operational types of items.  No problems as far as I can see, except that much of the allocated spending will be on implementation of Automatic Dependent Surveillance that is of no immediate concern.  It's a part of what the FAA is calling NextGen Air Transportation System, slated to go live in 2020.  While it sounds like a great idea to invest money in this type of infrastructure to achieve future efficiencies in air traffic control, there is nothing about delaying the implementation of this type of technology that would immediately result in increased delays or safety concerns regarding current air traffic control.  Some or all of the money allocated toward implementation of NextGen technologies could be partially or wholly suspended without disrupting current services.  Since the FAA needs to cut only $600 million (http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsid=71078) from its proposed budget in 2013, cutting the $955 million of expenditures slated for NextGen facilities and equipment would solve the FAA's budget problems and would even allow them to expand their workforce if necessary.
It's not necessary to look further into this budget to solve the furlough problem to see that the whole thing is a bunch of smoke and mirrors and is, in fact, a political stunt.  Certain items in the NextGen budget, like those related to ramping up capabilities to inspect and certify equipment, would be totally unnecessary anyway.  The airlines and manufacturers themselves should be responsible for covering their own quality control processes and costs, and that's all inspection and certification is essentialy.  These companies are privately owned businesses, and therefore shouldn't expect taxpayers to foot the bill for some of their expenses.  But since I'm not a big fan of the idea of cutting the implementation of technologies that are intended to increase the efficiency of the FAA in the long run, let's look elsewhere to see if there are more items that could be cut without disrupting service.
Research, Engineering and Development
Next on the budget is Research, Engineering and Development.  R&D is always good right?  Well looking a little further, it can be seen that the FAA is planning on doing research into "...propulsion and fuel systems, advanced materials research, and continued air worthiness."  Again, this type of research is the responsibility of the aircraft manufacturers to handle.  If they want R&D, they should pay for it themselves.  This is not to mention that adding the $180 million R&D budget cut to the tally, which would not disrupt current services, would put us at $1.135 billion in savings, almost double what the FAA needs to cut from their proposed budget increases.  But again, for reasons that I listed above regarding potentially increased efficiency, I'm not a big fan of cutting R&D to fix budget problems, so let's move on.
Grants-In-Aid for Airports
What's this all about?   Aren't the airports owned by the cities in which they are located? 
Why is it that the Federal Government has taken it upon itself to fund the airports themselves?  Shouldn't that be the responsibility of the owners?   This $2.4 billion that could easily be cut would put us up to $3.535 billion in budget cuts that would not affect immediate services, which is nearly six times what would be needed to keep all of the workers at their posts.  Yet they still claim that they don't have enough leeway in cuts to keep the most critical aspect of their operations, air traffic control, running at all times.
Conclusion
I could go on, as I've only hit the tip of the iceberg on areas that could be cut without doing furloughs, but it's not necessary.  The answer is now unequivocally yes, that the furloughs, and their relationship to the reduction in budget increases at the Federal Aviation Administration, are indeed a political stunt, or at the very least, gross incompetence.  Either way, I don't feel that the executive branch of the government, with the President at its helm, has represented its constituents very well here.