Johnny Olszewski

During the 43-day federal government shutdown — the longest in American history — I heard from constituents facing real and worsening consequences.

People like Michael from Rosedale, who spent his last SNAP dollars on a 50-pound bag of rice because he had no idea how far the Trump administration would push its fight to block reserve funding meant for food assistance

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers missed paychecks. Critical government services went dark: Air-traffic staffing plummeted, food inspectors were sidelined and nuclear safety personnel were furloughed. This wasn’t Washington gridlock. It was a systemic breakdown that touched every American community.

So yes — I am relieved that the shutdown is over, that workers are being paid again, and that vital programs are coming back online. That made my vote against the legislation to reopen the government difficult.

But it was the correct vote.

The Continuing Resolution that passed Congress doesn’t come close to delivering the relief our constituents are demanding and deserve. The bill presented a false choice: We could have reopened the government, paid our workers, fed hungry people and restored essential services while also protecting working families from skyrocketing health care premiums that function as a massive new tax. The average Maryland family now faces roughly $4,700 in higher premiums.

This isn’t a matter of resources. Republicans recently approved $1 trillion in tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the ultra-wealthy. President Donald Trump found $40 billion to bail out Argentina and another $1 billion to retrofit a new jet. Surely, Congress can find the funding to extend health care subsidies for a single year — especially when an alternative House Republican proposal already included that very idea, along with sensible measures like subsidy income caps and anti-fraud protections. I support both.

Yet House leadership refused to consider any amendments that would strengthen the bill or address spiraling health care costs. When I presented two amendments before the Rules Committee, only one Republican even bothered to stay in the room to hear my testimony.

These amendments would have prevented the executive branch from unilaterally cutting congressionally approved funding — a principle I committed to long before the shutdown. It’s an important principle, as President Trump and Congressional Republicans have already stripped more than $9 billion from the last bipartisan budget we passed. They halted job-creating energy projects in Maryland and across the country. They even threatened funding already approved to rebuild Baltimore’s Key Bridge — a lifeline for our local economy and national supply chain.

Good governance means keeping our word. When Congress agrees to a bipartisan budget, that deal should stick. Without those protections, no deal is worth the paper it’s written on.

But that wasn’t even the worst part.

My “no” vote also rejected an outrageous measure allowing a select group of U.S. Senators to write themselves — and only themselves — $1 million checks with taxpayer money because their phone records were legally subpoenaed.

This takes political corruption to a whole new level. With misconduct like bribery or insider trading, someone breaks a law. Here, Congress wrote a law to protect and fund corruption using your tax dollars. It is the brazen legalization of self-dealing, and anyone who supported it is complicit in that corruption.

Government belongs to the people, not the powerful — and I refused to endorse this shamelessly self-serving scheme.

Compromise is possible without compromising our values. But that requires something missing from this process and, sadly, politics altogether. It requires genuine conversation and a good-faith willingness to work together.

Americans are fed up — not only with the rising cost of living and increasingly extreme policies, but with the brinkmanship that caused this shutdown.

They want real solutions, right now. Unfortunately, this deal wasn’t one of them.

Johnny Olszewski Jr. is a Democrat representing Maryland in the U.S. House of Representatives. He served as the county executive of Baltimore County from 2018 to 2025.