埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）的总督项目是否迷失了方向？

总统大选几周后，埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）和维维克·拉马斯瓦米（Vivek Ramaswamy）做出了大胆的诺言：他们将合作削减官僚机构，并削减了数万亿美元的联邦支出。

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.

总统大选几周后，埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）和维维克·拉马斯瓦米（Vivek Ramaswamy）做出了大胆的诺言：他们将合作削减官僚机构，并削减了数万亿美元的联邦支出。

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.

两人通过新的政府效率部（DOGE）（DOGE）承诺要解决“几乎所有纳税人都希望结束的巨大的废物，欺诈和虐待”。 。

"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."

他们声称：“我们是企业家，而不是政治家。” “我们将担任外部志愿者，而不是联邦官员或雇员。与政府委员会或咨询委员会不同，我们不仅要写报告或剪彩。我们会削减成本。”

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. 

在第二届特朗普政府进行了两周的时间里，情况发生了很大的发展。最明显的是，Ramaswamy不再依附于Doge项目，而Musk成为唯一的领导者。马斯克现在不是在政府外部工作，而不是在政府外工作，而是在白宫设有一个办公室，新近铸造的乔治直接向特朗普报告。尽管总督似乎确实积极地针对行政部门的浪费支出，但尚不清楚这些努力是否会在不可避免的法院挑战中生存以及联邦预算是否会真正下降（或至少迅速增长）。

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.

在这一点上评估总督项目的主要问题是，太多尚不清楚，而这种不透明似乎是故意的。即使是最基本的事情，例如马斯克角色的法律限制以及为乔格工作人员工作的员工尚不清楚。更复杂的问题，例如削减了多少浪费支出，以及这些削减是否能够在法律和国会挑战中生存，这是完全未知的。的确，即使是Doge所做的最基本的方面，也使用总统授权国会的总统权力已经授权，这是在摇摇欲坠的法律基础上。马斯克显然正在迅速移动，并在行政状态内引起了很大的警报，但是很难说他是在削减政府，打破事情，还是只是在媒体和网上为特朗普的粉丝们举办大型演出。

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. 

这是我们所知道的：Doge的任务已经发生了很大的变化，到了Barack Obama时代的更具侵略性的版本，旨在简化和数字化官僚主义，而不是最初承诺的预算切割实体。

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. 

当然，这可能是一个值得的目标，可以使总统更直接控制联邦政府广泛的缔约国。但是，这与马斯克在总统竞选的最后阶段所做的大胆的承诺相当不同：Doge会发现削减预算的2万亿美元。

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.

拉马斯瓦米（Ramaswamy）上周表示，他离开总督是由于视野的差异。正如他和马斯克在杂志的专栏文章中所指出的那样，他想专注于削减联邦法规并与国会合作削减支出，但他说，该部门现在“从对法律宪法问题的关注开始”，以关注数字化技术。

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?

总督已经迷路了吗？还是马斯克将其塑造成最终会更有效的手术刀？可以俩吗？

From Meme to the White House

从模因到白宫

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. 

非正式的总督是8月19日出生的，当时马斯克在推特上发了一张AI生成的形象，说他的相似性站在一个标有“政府效率部”的讲台后面。他在《邮报》上写道：“我愿意服务。

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，新政府机构不能简单地从父亲的额头上弹出。在特朗普赢得选举之后，很明显，他很认真地任命马斯克（和拉马斯瓦米）领导IRL版本的竞选曲目模因，这是关于新实体将采取哪种形式的广泛猜测。

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，该国得到了答案。在一系列就职典礼日执行命令中，特朗普签署了一项命令，建立了总督，并赋予了“实施总统的总督议程，通过对联邦技术和软件进行现代化以最大化政府效率和生产力来实施总统的总督议程”。为了实现这些目标，总督被授权将团队置于其他联邦机构和部门内，以“提高政府范围的软件，网络基础架构和信息技术（IT）系统的质量和效率”。

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.

实际上，总督接管了以前针对美国数字服务的白宫资源，这是由奥巴马政府创建的一个实体，目的是将政府运营进行数字化和现代化。

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

这项行政命令“从大量的监管和预算削减方面却大大缩小了总督的使命，而对技术现代化的关注更加狭窄，”竞争性企业学院的高级研究员詹姆斯·布劳尔（James Broughel）告诉理性。 （虽然布劳尔的一些同事有直接的会议