I generally like Brit Hume. But over the weekend, I believe he got it wrong in opposing Obama regarding his promise to use an Executive Order to implement amnesty.

Here’s what Hume said:

“It’s a total blunder to try that, because if the President were to veto the bill, a bill that would keep the government going, and there was a shutdown, it wouldn’t matter. It never has, what the proximate cause of the shutdown was.

“It’s an iron rule in Washington exemplified many times, if the government is shuts down, the Republicans get the blame. Not some of the blame, not most of the blame, all of the blame.

“And one would surmise that they may have learned that by now, the leaders seem to have, but there are some within the House and Senate who still think that kind of brinksmanship might work. I doubt it.”

We were told the same thing when the government was shut down last year. True to form, the Republicans got blamed.

So how did blaming the GOP work out in the last election? The Republicans stomped all over the Democrats. Apparently the government shutdown did not affect the election in a negative way for the Republicans.

I suspect that the right people liked the shutdown. The American people looked on the shutdown as confirmation that the government is too big and could be scaled back considerably and hardly anybody would notice.

A government shutdown does not mean that the entire Federal government gets shutdown. Essential services are not affected.

Any funding for an unconstitutional act like an Executive Order to implement amnesty for millions of illegals would not get funded. The only people to object would be people who aren’t citizens and can’t vote legally. Hardcore Democrats who support amnesty aren’t going to vote for Republicans in the next election, so why should the GOP be concerned about them?

It’s the Democrats that don’t want a shutdown since a shutdown would demonstrate that much of the Federal Government is not needed or at least can be scaled back.

While the private sector is still struggling economically, the Federal Government has added high-paying jobs. A high percentage of government employees become loyal Democrat voters. Why would they ever vote to shrink the size of the government? Their jobs depend on growing the government.

Here’s some wisdom from Thomas Sowell:

“Even when it comes to something as basic, and apparently as simple and straightforward, as the question of who shut down the federal government [in 2013], there are diametrically opposite answers, depending on whether you talk to Democrats or to Republicans.

“There is really nothing complicated about the facts. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted all the money required to keep all government activities going — except for ObamaCare.

“This is not a matter of opinion. You can check the congressional record.

“As for the House of Representatives’ right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that congressmen there have a right to decide whether they want to spend money on a particular government activity.”

A government shutdown would show Obama that Republicans are willing to fight and demonstrate to Republican voters that the GOP has grown a spine.