James Madison surely looks down from Heaven and smiles

That chopping sound you hear is the transition team acting like principled Constitutionalists:

The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.

Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.

The proposed cuts hew closely to a blueprint published last year by the conservative Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has helped staff the Trump transition.

Of course, at some point,  some principled people, from Congress or executive-branch advisors, or some combination thereof, will have to engage Squirrel-Hair on the matter of Medicare and Social Security, which he has vowed not to cut, but which are the biggest obstacles to the government clawing its way back to solvency.

But to make the above moves right out of the gate sets a tone whereby such conversations may be easier to have. It's like the psychological effect of Dave Ramsey's debt snowball: you see the red ink receding, and you get inspired to look at how to accelerate the process.

Everybody needs to brace themselves for a considerable uptick in the degree of venom from the Left, of course.

But once the results start manifesting themselves, the viciousness is going to ring pretty hollow.