Core inflation is at a 41-year high of 9.1 percent. With no end in sight despite a year of rosy promises from the White House, Republicans plan to pass budget cuts should they win Congress, giving President Biden a choice: Join them or be responsible for a government shutdown. 

Senator Scott, Republican of Florida, told Actualidad Radio, “If we can get over 50 senators in the Senate, we can pass a reconciliation bill. Which, then, the Biden administration — Biden — will have to make a choice whether he wants to shut down government or fund things the proper way.” 

House Republicans, led by Chip Roy of Texas, are calling for the repeal of President Biden’s $700 billion baby — the failed Inflation-Reduction Act — on Day One. It’s a bold strategy, but our current crisis cries out for boldness, not more of the easy money that sent prices skyrocketing.

A persistent claim on the Potomac is that shutting down the government resulted in Republicans losing power after the 1994 election, but the next midterms saw them gain two seats in the Senate and lose only eight in the House. By maintaining their majorities, they coaxed President Clinton to join them in balancing the budget. 

In a 2016 Wall Street Journal column headlined, “Shutdown’s Political Damage May Be Overrated,” Dante Chinni wrote that despite the October 2013 shutdown as a Republican Congress sparred with President Obama, the GOP gained in the midterms 13 months later, capturing a majority in the U.S. Senate and holding the House.

When Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi shut down the government to extract concessions from President Trump in 2018, it was the White House that held firm, forcing the Democrats to cave and provide the votes to get things running on terms more favorable to the administration.

It’s essential that Republicans have a plan for repeal, since should Democrats be voted out of power, they’ll be incentivized to raid the Treasury yet again in the lame-duck Congress before handing over the speaker’s gavel and/or the Senate majority leader’s office. 

This was the gambit Democrats employed after losing the House in the Tea Party wave of 2010, ramming through an omnibus bill of 1,924 pages in the final days of the 111th Congress despite what a Republican senator of North Dakota, John Thune, called “the clear will expressed by the voters this past election [to] stop this reckless spending.”

It will be up to Republican leadership to make clear to voters that contrary to doomsayers like Paul Krugman of the New York Times describing their plan as “blackmail,” the government doesn’t really shut down if Congress and the president reach an impasse, regardless of Washington’s hubris that citizens cannot live without it. 

The government turning off some lights was never a national crisis until Mr. Clinton weaponized the process. When Democrats in Congress shut down the government a record eight times during President Reagan’s two terms, the American people just cranked up the Duran Duran and went on with their lives. 

The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget writes, “In a ‘shutdown,’ federal agencies must discontinue all non-essential discretionary functions until new funding legislation is passed and signed into law. Essential services continue to function, as do mandatory spending programs.”

If there’s a pause on nonessential spending, Mr. Biden may employ Mr. Obama’s tactics such as cordoning off sites like the National World War II Memorial — which is outdoors and requires no staff to run it — to maximize public suffering.

The difference today is that Mr. Biden’s policies are already delivering pain. Americans feel it in their 401(k)s, grocery bills, and interest rates. It’s tough to make the case that shuttered parks are a problem when you can’t afford to fill your gas tank to drive there.