Ohio’s new senator Jon Husted didn’t mince words on Newsmax’s Wake Up America this week when he laid the blame for the catastrophe in Washington squarely at the feet of Senate Democrats. Husted warned that the shutdown isn’t an abstract policy fight — it’s a series of real harms to everyday Americans, and he pointed to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his allies as the obstructionists refusing to compromise.
Travelers are already paying the price for that partisan grandstanding, with the FAA imposing cuts and airlines preemptively canceling hundreds of flights as controllers and TSA screeners work without pay. Families who saved and planned for holidays are now facing the kind of chaos Democrats always claim they can manage but never do when consequences arrive.
Husted made a point of leadership that too few in Washington will emulate: he announced he would refuse his congressional paycheck while the shutdown drags on, arguing that lawmakers shouldn’t collect a salary when military families and federal workers don’t. That kind of accountability is what voters want — not more Washington elites who lecture from marble foyers while Americans lose paychecks and flights.
Make no mistake, this shutdown did not spring from a policy debate in a vacuum; it followed the Senate’s failure to pass a stopgap funding bill and a series of Democrat votes that killed measures to reopen the government. Republicans are offering fixes and temporary measures to protect service members and essential operations, while Democrats dig in to score political points.
Senator Husted is right to demand furloughed federal employees be paid and to call for reopening the government so the nation’s priorities — defense, public safety, air travel and the economy — can be put back on a normal footing. There is room for negotiation on long-term spending, but first things first: stop weaponizing people’s livelihoods as bargaining chips for a political theater.
Hardworking Americans don’t want lectures about process — they want results, refunds, and safe flights home for their kids and veterans who defend our freedoms. If flights are canceled and paychecks are missed, remember who chose to play politics instead of govern; then hold those lawmakers responsible at the ballot box and demand leaders who put country over caucus.
