By Timothy Loftus, Editor & Publisher | Sergeant Bluff Advocate
(SBA) - In the guest commentary from Senator Chuck Grassley this week, he talks about how government shutdowns fail the American people. I have to admit, he is 100% correct with that statement. However, I can’t abide by the suggestions he makes, blaming the Democrats and independents by saying Democrats are using “misguided political calculus” to take food away from low-income Americans and forcing federal workers to miss being paid. What it comes down to is the House of Representatives is broken. Both sides are to blame for this shutdown. Basically, it comes down to the Democrats wanting to continue the ACA’s tax credits for health insurance, and the Republicans wanting to eliminate the tax credit. Period. It’s ideology. The House of Representatives is a joke. They are no longer there to support their constituents and the American people. That is obvious. Each side is blaming the other for a problem that they themselves created and should not exist in the richest country in the world, and they are both using children, seniors, veterans, and low-income workers as pawns in their political brinksmanship. They all need to be fired, in my opinion. Personally, I like Charles Grassley. He has served our country with distinction and honor. He has also done some good things for the citizens of Iowa. But damn, Chuck, you are part of the problem too. You are part of this broken system that no longer works, and I don’t see you reaching across the aisle to compromise to get our government open again. It’s always the other guy's fault.
I’m sorry if what I am saying makes the hardliners mad, but we pay these people a lot of money to run our system of government, and it’s the people who usually get hosed in the end. You all need to get your butts back to Washington and do what you are paid to do.
Our government isn’t working for us anymore. It’s working for itself. What we are watching in Washington right now isn’t leadership; it’s a political performance played on the backs of everyday Americans who can least afford it. While federal workers miss paychecks, while veterans see delays in benefits, while families who depend on SNAP wonder how they’ll put food on the table, the politicians who caused it all stand in front of cameras pointing fingers at one another.
This latest government shutdown isn’t about policy anymore. It’s about ego. It’s about party loyalty and political gamesmanship. Both sides — Democrats and Republicans — have locked themselves in a standoff over who gets to “win” the news cycle instead of how to serve the people who elected them. It’s the same old script, Democrats accuse Republicans of cruelty, Republicans accuse Democrats of waste, and meanwhile, Americans are caught in the middle, paying the price for a government that seems more interested in headlines than hard work.
Senator Grassley said, “It costs money to shut down the government. It costs money to open up the government. The government is a service to the people. When the government is closed, it can’t serve the people.” He’s right about that. But what he didn’t say is that those costs — in money, in trust, in human dignity — fall hardest on the people who have the least power to do anything about it. Federal employees can’t walk into their boss’s office and demand Congress reopen. The single parent relying on WIC benefits can’t negotiate with House leadership to turn the lights back on. The senior waiting on Social Security updates or the veteran calling the VA hotline doesn’t care which party’s fault it is — they just want the system to work.
Yet instead of doing their jobs, our lawmakers seem more concerned with scoring political points than finding solutions. The Democrats insist the continuation of ACA tax credits is nonnegotiable. The Republicans insist it must go. Both sides talk about principle, but what principle is it when 40 million Americans face losing food benefits and the people who serve in uniform can’t be sure their families will get paid? What principle justifies turning a functioning government into a hostage of ideology?
This is not what leadership looks like.
Senator Grassley invoked history, recalling the shutdown under President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich, saying “nobody wins in a government shutdown, especially the American people.” That lesson should have stuck. But it hasn’t. Nearly 30 years later, the same fights, the same tactics, the same finger-pointing continue, as if Washington’s memory resets every election cycle.
And while we watch this tragic farce unfold, Congress somehow finds ways to spend billions overseas — even, as reported, sending $40 billion to Argentina’s authoritarian government while our own citizens stand in line at food banks. It’s hard not to feel a deep sense of betrayal in moments like this. When we’re told there’s “no money” for food programs, for school lunches, for healthcare, or for veterans’ housing, but then we see tens of billions flow abroad without hesitation, it’s fair to ask, who exactly are our elected officials representing?
When was the last time Congress shut down over a bill to fix the country’s broken infrastructure, to rebuild schools, or to secure veterans’ healthcare? When was the last time they filibustered for working families instead of tax breaks for corporations or campaign donations from lobbyists?
It’s become painfully clear that Washington no longer sees its citizens as the priority — we’re the backdrop to their show. And this shutdown proves it.
While Senator Grassley blames Democrats for “misguided political calculus,” it’s worth remembering that Republicans have used the same tactics when it suited them. During the 2013 shutdown, it was Republicans refusing to pass funding over Obamacare. During 2018–2019, it was Democrats and Republicans deadlocked over border wall funding. Every time, one side claims moral superiority, but the result is always the same, government workers unpaid, services halted, public trust eroded. The names change, the slogans change, but the dysfunction remains.
Both parties are addicted to the same poison — partisan politics.
It’s easy to say, as Grassley did, “Congress needs to stop pussyfooting around with partisan games and reopen the government.” But the truth is, Congress itself has built the very system that rewards those games. When lawmakers can raise millions of dollars during a shutdown by going on TV to blame the other party, why would they rush to end it? When social media outrage drives campaign donations, why compromise? When the loudest, most extreme voices are the ones who get re-elected, why listen to reason?
We’ve created a political ecosystem that thrives on division. And the result is paralysis.
There was a time when reaching across the aisle wasn’t political suicide. Lawmakers like Bob Dole and Ted Kennedy — who disagreed on nearly everything — still found common ground on major legislation because they believed in governing. They believed in the basic idea that compromise wasn’t weakness; it was the price of democracy.
Today, that kind of pragmatism is rare. The incentives have flipped. A member of Congress is more likely to be punished by their own party for working with the opposition than rewarded by voters for getting something done. And so, the gridlock grows deeper.
What makes this shutdown even harder to stomach is that it’s happening in a time of enormous economic strain. Inflation may have cooled on paper, but groceries are still expensive. Gas prices fluctuate. Housing is unaffordable for millions. And while Americans tighten their belts, Congress keeps writing checks abroad and bickering about tax credits. Forty billion dollars sent overseas, while back home, we have homeless veterans on the streets of Des Moines and school districts in Iowa struggling to afford lunches for kids.
Grassley warns that Democrats’ spending proposals could add “trillions in entitlement spending as the national debt careened past $38 trillion.” Fair point — fiscal responsibility matters. But where was that discipline when massive corporate subsidies or defense contracts were on the table? Both parties have their sacred cows. Republicans balk at food programs but sign off on bloated defense budgets. Democrats decry tax cuts for the wealthy but shovel billions into bureaucratic agencies with little oversight. Neither party owns the moral high ground when it comes to spending.
At the heart of this issue is a simple truth, the federal government has forgotten who it serves.
It’s supposed to serve the farmer in Woodbury County who’s wondering whether USDA loans will come through. It’s supposed to serve the family in Sergeant Bluff who depends on food assistance to get through the month. It’s supposed to serve the air traffic controller, the postal worker, the federal park ranger — all of whom have bills to pay and families to feed. When the government shuts down, it’s their lives that get upended, not the lives of the politicians arguing about it on television. They get their checks to feed their families, whether the government is open or closed. They made sure of that.
Senator Grassley said, “When the government is closed, it can’t serve the people.” That’s the heart of it. But that truth should also extend beyond shutdowns. When Congress spends more time scoring political wins than solving problems, the government isn’t serving the people then, either.
The dysfunction has become so normalized that we barely flinch anymore when deadlines pass and agencies go dark. We shake our heads, mutter something about “typical Washington,” and move on. But we shouldn’t. Because every time we accept this as normal, every time we excuse it as “just politics,” we lower the standard for leadership.
It’s not unreasonable to expect our representatives to do their jobs — to pass budgets, fund services, and govern responsibly. That’s literally what we elect them for. Yet they’ve turned even the most basic functions of government into political theater. The House has become less a deliberative body and more a stage for partisan grandstanding. The Senate, once known as the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” now functions mostly as a parking lot for good ideas.
We’ve reached a point where the only bipartisan consensus seems to be on raising their own salaries and avoiding accountability. Meanwhile, Americans are struggling. The wealth gap widens. Infrastructure crumbles. Rural hospitals close. Farmers fight to stay afloat. And our elected officials? They argue about who gets to claim victory in a stalemate.
Senator Grassley has proposed an automatic continuing resolution to prevent future shutdowns — essentially keeping the government open at current levels until a new budget is passed. That’s a start. But it’s a bandage on a bullet wound. The deeper problem is that Congress no longer functions as a governing body. It functions as a perpetual campaign machine.
Until that changes, nothing will.
It’s time for voters — the people who still believe this country can do better — to demand accountability from both parties. Not just in words, but in action. Don’t reward obstruction. Don’t fall for the outrage bait. Don’t accept that “this is just how politics works.” Because it doesn’t have to.
We deserve a government that works for us — not against us, not around us, not at our expense. A government that remembers its purpose is to serve, not to posture.
Every member of Congress should spend 30 days in the shoes of a furloughed worker, or a veteran waiting for benefits, or a parent trying to explain to a hungry child why food stamps didn’t come through this month. Maybe then they’d understand what their political games really cost.
Grassley quoted a Senate chaplain who said, “No gold medals are given for breaking shutdown records, but a crown of righteousness is given to those who take care of the lost, last, and least.”
That should be the measure of our leaders. Not who wins the news cycle, but who serves the people with humility, decency, and responsibility.
It’s time to reopen not just the government — but our sense of what government is supposed to be. Because right now, Washington is broken. And unless both parties are willing to look in the mirror and admit their share of the blame, the American people will keep paying the price for their failure.
We can’t afford another shutdown — not of our government, not of our faith in it.
