埃隆·馬斯克（Elon Musk）的總督項目是否迷失了方向？

總統大選幾週後，埃隆·馬斯克（Elon Musk）和維維克·拉馬斯瓦米（Vivek Ramaswamy）做出了大膽的諾言：他們將合作削減官僚機構，並削減了數万億美元的聯邦支出。

A few weeks after the presidential election, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy made a bold promise: They would team up to slash bureaucracy and cut trillions of dollars in federal spending.

總統大選幾週後，埃隆·馬斯克（Elon Musk）和維維克·拉馬斯瓦米（Vivek Ramaswamy）做出了大膽的諾言：他們將合作削減官僚機構，並削減了數万億美元的聯邦支出。

Through the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the pair promised to tackle "the sheer magnitude of waste, fraud and abuse that nearly all taxpayers wish to end," the pair promised in a joint op-ed printed in The Wall Street Journal.

兩人通過新的政府效率部（DOGE）（DOGE）承諾要解決“幾乎所有納稅人都希望結束的巨大的廢物，欺詐和虐待”。 。

"We are entrepreneurs, not politicians," they claimed. "We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won't just write reports or cut ribbons. We'll cut costs."

他們聲稱：“我們是企業家，而不是政治家。” “我們將擔任外部志願者，而不是聯邦官員或僱員。與政府委員會或諮詢委員會不同，我們不僅要寫報告或剪彩。我們會削減成本。”

More than two weeks into the second Trump administration, the situation has evolved considerably. Most obviously, Ramaswamy is no longer attached to the DOGE project, leaving Musk as the sole leader. Rather than being a volunteer working from outside the government, Musk now has an office in the White House, where the newly minted DOGE reports directly to Trump. And while the DOGE does seem to be aggressively targeting wasteful spending in the executive branch, it remains quite unclear whether those efforts will survive inevitable court challenges and whether the federal budget will actually decline (or at least grow less quickly) as a result. 

在第二屆特朗普政府進行了兩週的時間裡，情況發生了很大的發展。最明顯的是，Ramaswamy不再依附於Doge項目，而Musk成為唯一的領導者。馬斯克現在不是在政府外部工作，而不是在政府外工作，而是在白宮設有一個辦公室，新近鑄造的喬治直接向特朗普報告。儘管總督似乎確實積極地針對行政部門的浪費支出，但尚不清楚這些努力是否會在不可避免的法院挑戰中生存以及聯邦預算是否會真正下降（或至少迅速增長）。

The main problem in assessing the DOGE project at this point is that so much is unknown—and that much of that opacity seems to be intentional. Even the most basic things like the legal limits of Musk's role and how many staff are working for the DOGE remain unclear. More complicated questions like how much wasteful spending has been cut and whether those cuts can survive legal and congressional challenges are completely unknown. Indeed, even the most foundational aspect of what DOGE is doing—using presidential authority to block spending Congress has authorized—is on shaky legal footing. Musk is obviously moving quickly and causing a great deal of alarm within the administrative state, but it is hard to tell whether he's slashing government, breaking things, or merely putting on a big show for Trump's fans in the media and online.

在這一點上評估總督項目的主要問題是，太多尚不清楚，而這種不透明似乎是故意的。即使是最基本的事情，例如馬斯克角色的法律限制以及為喬格工作人員工作的員工尚不清楚。更複雜的問題，例如削減了多少浪費支出，以及這些削減是否能夠在法律和國會挑戰中生存，這是完全未知的。的確，即使是Doge所做的最基本的方面，也使用總統授權國會的總統權力已經授權，這是在搖搖欲墜的法律基礎上。馬斯克顯然正在迅速移動，並在行政狀態內引起了很大的警報，但是很難說他是在削減政府，打破事情，還是只是在媒體和網上為特朗普的粉絲們舉辦大型演出。

Here's what we do know: The DOGE's mandate has already shifted significantly—to the point where it looks more like a more aggressive version of a Barack Obama–era project meant to streamline and digitize bureaucracy rather than the budget-cutting entity originally promised. 

這是我們所知道的：Doge的任務已經發生了很大的變化，到了Barack Obama時代的更具侵略性的版本，旨在簡化和數字化官僚主義，而不是最初承諾的預算切割實體。

That might be a worthwhile goal, of course, and one that could give the president more direct control over the federal government's extensive contracting systems. But it is a considerably different one than the bold promise Musk made during the final stages of the presidential campaign: that DOGE would find $2 trillion in budget cuts. 

當然，這可能是一個值得的目標，可以使總統更直接控制聯邦政府廣泛的締約國。但是，這與馬斯克在總統競選的最後階段所做的大膽的承諾相當不同：Doge會發現削減預算的2萬億美元。

Ramaswamy said last week that his departure from the DOGE was due to a difference in vision. Whereas he wanted to focus on cutting federal regulations and working with Congress to cut spending, as he and Musk noted in their Journal op-ed, he said the department has now "evolved from a focus on legal constitutional issues" to a focus on digital technology.

拉馬斯瓦米（Ramaswamy）上週表示，他離開總督是由於視野的差異。正如他和馬斯克在雜誌的專欄文章中所指出的那樣，他想專注於削減聯邦法規並與國會合作削減支出，但他說，該部門現在“從對法律憲法問題的關注開始”，以關注數字化技術。

Has the DOGE already lost its way? Or has Musk shaped it into a scalpel that will ultimately prove more effective? Could it be both?

總督已經迷路了嗎？還是馬斯克將其塑造成最終會更有效的手術刀？可以倆嗎？

From Meme to the White House

從模因到白宮

Unofficially, the DOGE was born on August 19, when Musk tweeted an AI-generated image of his likeness standing behind a podium labeled "Department of Government Efficiency." "I am willing to serve," he wrote in the post, an apparent nod to some off-the-cuff remarks made by Trump a few days earlier. 

非正式的總督是8月19日出生的，當時馬斯克在推特上發了一張AI生成的形象，說他的相似性站在一個標有“政府效率部”的講台後面。他在《郵報》上寫道：“我願意服務。

Officially, however, new government agencies cannot simply spring from the foreheads of their fathers. After Trump won the election, and it became clear he was serious about appointing Musk (and Ramaswamy) to lead an IRL version of what had started as a campaign trail meme, there was widespread speculation about exactly what form the new entity would take.

但是，正式地，新政府機構不能簡單地從父親的額頭上彈出。在特朗普贏得選舉之後，很明顯，他很認真地任命馬斯克（和拉馬斯瓦米）領導IRL版本的競選曲目模因，這是關於新實體將採取哪種形式的廣泛猜測。

On January 20, the country got the answer. Amid a flurry of Inauguration Day executive orders, Trump signed an order establishing the DOGE and gave it a mandate to "implement the President's DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity." To achieve those goals, the DOGE was empowered to place teams of people within other federal agencies and departments to "improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems."

1月20日，該國得到了答案。在一系列就職典禮日執行命令中，特朗普簽署了一項命令，建立了總督，並賦予了“實施總統的總督議程，通過對聯邦技術和軟件進行現代化以最大化政府效率和生產力來實施總統的總督議程”。為了實現這些目標，總督被授權將團隊置於其他聯邦機構和部門內，以“提高政府範圍的軟件，網絡基礎架構和信息技術（IT）系統的質量和效率”。

As a practical matter, the DOGE took over the White House resources previously directed to the U.S. Digital Service, an entity created by the Obama administration with the goal of digitizing and modernizing governmental operations.

實際上，總督接管了以前針對美國數字服務的白宮資源，這是由奧巴馬政府創建的一個實體，目的是將政府運營進行數字化和現代化。

That executive order "resulted in a significant narrowing of the DOGE's mission, away from sweeping regulatory and budget cuts, toward a much narrower focus on tech modernization," James Broughel, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, tells Reason. (While some of Broughel's colleagues have had direct meetings

這項行政命令“從大量的監管和預算削減方面卻大大縮小了總督的使命，而對技術現代化的關注更加狹窄，”競爭性企業學院的高級研究員詹姆斯·布勞爾（James Broughel）告訴理性。 （雖然布勞爾的一些同事有直接的會議