More Hank Shaw… Drive long enough and everything seems boring. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not the countryside that’s boring, it’s you. Or more accurately, you lose your ability to absorb sights and create meaning from those sights the longer you see them. Life blurs. And slows. There’s physical evidence for this. My heart rate can drop dramatically in a long drive, dipping below 55 beats a minute. My thinking slows, too, although this is not necessarily a bad thing. I find my mind will hold a thought, turning it this way and that, really ruminating. Sometimes this helps me solve problems. Sometimes it doesn’t.

“There is actually a law called the anti-deficiency act that stipulates that the Executive Branch must spend the amount of money allocated by Congress to a particular agency,” Sarah observes. “So you can’t just not spend the money, at least according to the statute.” I don’t think this would constrain Trump and his allies. Elon in particular is going to want to head down this road. His WSJ op-ed with Vivek lays out a clear plan to shrink the workforce by reducing the number of regulations they are responsible for. In a battle between Elon and the bureaucracy, I’d bet on Elon. I’d be very concerned if I was a rank-and-file federal employee.