Liberal members of Congress and big-spending bureaucrats have found a foolproof way to get what they want, which is to milk taxpayers for all we are worth, and then some. It is simple: Merely threaten a “government shutdown.”

After he signed a $1.3 trillion spending bill in March, President Donald Trump vowed he would not do so again. His complaint, in part, was that the measure was chock-full of billions of dollars in unnecessary spending.

Now, another big spending bill is on deck. Trump is reminding lawmakers of what he said in March.

The reaction from Capitol Hill and many in the press is that another government shutdown may be in the works.

Perhaps so. But at some point, real spending discipline is imperative. Washington already takes plenty of money out of our pockets. Even that is not enough; the national debt now stands at about $21 trillion.

Yet it seems that any move to rein in runaway spending can be stopped by the mere threat of shutting down some government agencies for a few days. At some point, responsible lawmakers need to say no to that type of political extortion.