Senator asks: Do you want this dysfunctional government taking over health care?

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson says if the latest congressional impasse isn't a wake-up call for American voters, nothing is.

"I hope people have their eyes wide open ... that they see the dysfunction here is real," the Oshkosh Republican told Wisconsin Reporter on Tuesday morning in the hours after the partial federal government shutdown.

"Is this entity what we want to see continue growing, taking over our health care?" Johnson said of the federal government. "That's why we need to see power devolve back to the states and local governments."

President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats placed the blame for the partial shutdown squarely on the shoulders of "ideological" crusading conservatives fighting against implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the federal health care overhaul that said conservatives have dubbed Obamacare.

Using the same descriptors his party has employed in calling out conservatives in recent days, the president in a Rose Garden address vilified Republicans, charging that they are holding the economy "hostage."

Democrats and Republicans could not come to terms on a funding bill in advance of the new federal fiscal year, beginning Tuesday.

Click for more from Watchdog.org.