Press Secretary: Our critics claim that the President' s recent highway project cancellations demonstrate a vindictive desire to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties. They offer as evidence the fact that 90 percent of the projects canceled were in such districts. But all of the canceled projects had been identified as wasteful in a report written by respected nonpartisan auditors. So the President' s choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics.
The assumption that the scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the President's party is on which the press secretary's argument depends.