COLUMBUS – As the Senate prepares to break a logjam and get the federal government up and running again, Ohioans go about their business virtually unaffected, according to a survey.
Unless they work at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park or the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton or work at those places.
Ohio is fifth from the bottom on the list of states affected by the government shutdown, according to a study from WalletHub.com.
The website says Ohio ranks very low on the list, based on factors like the number of national parks, federal contract dollars as a percent of state GDP and its share of federal jobs. The state ranks 33rd in the percentage of children affected by the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is being held up as part of the congressional gridlock that has brought about the shutdown.
The state’s highest rank – 16th – was among states that receive small business loans.
Nevertheless, Ohio’s senators invoked workers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the NASA Glenn Research Center in criticizing the shutdown during debate Sunday.
Democrat Sherrod Brown introduced a bill to reopen the government for three days to give senators time to continue negotiating but it met with Republican objections.
“There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to get this done. There’s no reason we can’t reopen the government right now,” said Brown, who blasted Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for allowing the GOP objection.
Brown was not one of the five Democrats from states won by President Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election who broke ranks in a vote Friday that would have headed off the shutdown. The measure gained 50 votes to proceed to 49 against, but 60 were needed to break a Democratic filibuster.
I just think it’s crazy that we’re allowing this to happen. It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t get it,” said Ohio Republican Rob Portman, who voted to end the filibuster. “Yes, there are some larger issues we’ve got to come together on and solve in a bipartisan way, but we should agree to a short-term funding deal to just get the government up and running and then move on to solving those problems because we’re not working on them now, I can tell you, because everybody is distracted by this issue.”
Both Brown and Portman are donating their salaries during the shutdown to charities, according to their offices.
Another vote to break the filibuster was scheduled for noon Monday. Under the proposal taking shape, Democrats would agree to a three-week spending measure — until Feb. 8 — in return for a commitment from the Republican leadership in the Senate to address immigration policy and other pressing legislative matters in the coming weeks.
But Democrats appeared to be holding out for a firmer commitment from McConnell. “We have yet to reach an agreement on a path forward,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said late Sunday.