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When they controlled the House but not the Senate, the Republican leaders said that we couldn't use our leverage to shut down the government to secure a cut in spending.
Then, we went out and captured the Senate.
The next year, we were told that while Obama was president, we couldn't use our leverage controlling both houses to achieve our priorities by threatening a shutdown.
So, we won the next election.
Now, controlling the White House, the Senate, and the House, the Republicans folded and let the Democrats walk all over them in the short-term spending bill negotiations...or should we call it the surrender?
Here's what we didn't get:
• Funds for a border wall
• Cutoff for Planned Parenthood
• Extra border security guards
• Cutoff in Obamacare subsidies
• Defunding sanctuary cities
Republicans in Congress say that the country would not tolerate another round of brinkmanship over keeping the government open. They say the specter of a debt default will haunt Wall Street. (Of course, there is no threat of a default because the Republicans can prioritize the use of existing revenues - not borrowed funds - to pay debt service). But Republicans say the fiction, that a shutdown would mean a debt default, is so deeply implanted that it can't be debunked.
So don't shut down the government!
Just change the procedural rule that undergirds the Democrats in the Senate: That 60 votes are needed to pass a bill or a budget. Lower it to 50 with a simple majority vote, just like they did on the Gorsuch nomination.
Henry Kissinger wrote: "The strong grow weak through inhibition. The weak grow strong through effrontery."
Republicans in Congress: Stop letting Schumer play you! Call his bluff!
Dick Morris, who served as adviser to former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and former President Clinton, is the author of 16 books, including his latest, Screwed and Here Come the Black Helicopters.