“Airlines are going to be more prepared the next time the government shuts down and makes these types of reduction demands,” Joel Martinez, aviation sciences adjunct professor and former director of aviation for the City of Waco, said. “The airlines are going to have a response plan set up or establish a reduction to certain communities.”

The government is almost back in business. The Senate passed legislation Monday in a 60-40 vote to reopen the government and end the historic government shutdown.

The nation’s capital feels half-awake. The marble monuments still gleam under the fall sun, but the museums that give them voice stand dark and locked. Tourists wander quiet streets where government offices sit empty—a city paused by a shutdown now stretching into its third week.

When the government shuts down, it’s easy to shrug and think, “That’s Washington’s problem.” But here’s the truth: when the lights go out in D.C., the shadows reach our classrooms, our dorm rooms and our financial aid accounts. The shutdown may seem like political theater performed by distant figures in suits, but the damage has already spread not only to our campuses, but our faith in the system itself.

Congress passed a stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, on Sunday, narrowly avoiding a government shutdown. The House and Senate signed the bill an hour before the deadline.

The conclusion of the shutdown episode has brought a flurry of analysis and harsh criticism of Congress. But there’s something missing in it all. As tempting as it might sound to fire all of our elected leaders, it isn’t just Congress who needs to step up to avoid another government shutdown. It’s our responsibility too.

Up against a deadline, Congress passed and sent a waiting President Barack Obama legislation late Wednesday night to avoid a threatened national default and end the 16-day partial government shutdown, the culmination of an epic political drama that placed the U.S. economy at risk.

Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Senate has voted to avoid a financial default and reopen the government after a 16-day…

As the government shutdown continues, America is realizing exactly how much the government manages. While Republicans and Democrats continue to bicker and argue, America is paying the price of this temper tantrum though several avenues.

The shutdown is supposed to prevent non-essential spending, but this isn’t happening in all cases. The servers that host government websites are still running, but they are redirecting to a shutdown page. It would have made more sense, if the government wanted to really save money, to shut down the servers to federal websites. It isn’t saving the government any money to block these websites. They’re only annoying the American people.

The U.S. government has shut down, yet the country largely continues to run as usual. The world didn’t end and the economy did not come to a crashing halt.

Americans need to realize that there is only one party that deserves the lion’s share of the blame for the shutdown: the Democrats.

This shutdown has been years in the making. Until March 23 of this year, the Democrat-controlled Senate failed to even vote on a budget for more than four years, and they have yet to send a budget to the White House as of this writing. That is gross negligence to do the job to which they were elected.

The Army Corps of Engineers closed six Lake Waco parks Tuesday as a result of Monday’s gridlock in Congress that resulted in a partial government shutdown.

Midway Park, Speegleville Park, Airport Park, Koehne Park, Bosque Park and Twin Bridges Park all closed indefinitely, said Randy Cephus, the deputy public affairs officer for the Fort Worth District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.