马斯克改革政府计划全文(中英文)

哲学园 · 公众号 · 哲学 · 2024-11-30 00:00

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转自：社科学人

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哲学园鸣谢

马斯克发布改革政府计划

马斯克拉玛斯瓦米

2024年11月20日《华尔街日报》

我们的国家建立在一个基本理念之上：由我们选出的人（the people we elect）来管理政府。然而，美国当今的运作方式已经不再如此。大多数法令，并非国会通过的法律，而是由未经选举的官僚颁布的“规则和法规”——每年颁布的法规数以万计。大多数政府执法决策和自由裁量支出，并非由民选总统或其任命的政治官员做出，而是由政府机构内数以百万计的未经选举、未被任命的公务员决定，这些人自认为可以凭借公务员保护机制而免于被裁。

这种认识是反民主的，而且与建国者的愿景背道而驰。它给纳税人带来了巨大的直接和间接成本。值得庆幸的是，我们获得了一次历史性的机会来解决这个问题。11月5日，选民们以压倒性多数选出了特朗普，并赋予其进行全面变革的使命，他们应当享有这一结果。

特朗普总统已邀请我们二人领导一个新成立的“政府效率部”（简称DOGE），以精简联邦政府的规模。树大根深且不断膨胀的官僚体系对我们的共和国的生存构成了威胁，政治家们对此已纵容太久。这就是为什么我们要以不同的方式来行事。

我们是企业家，不是政客。我们将以外部志愿者的身份——而非联邦官员或雇员——从事服务。与政府委员会或咨询机构不同，我们不会只是撰写报告或剪彩，我们将真正削减成本。

我们正在协助特朗普过渡团队，识别并招聘一支精干的由小政府主义者（small-government crusaders）组成的团队，其中包括一些美国最杰出的技术和法律人才。这个团队将在新政府中与白宫管理和预算办公室紧密合作。我们二人将在每一个步骤上为政府效率部提供咨询，以推动三大类改革：

废除过度监管，减少行政开支，节省成本。

我们将聚焦通过基于现有立法的行政措施推动改革，而不是通过制定新法律的方式。我们改革的指导思想是美国宪法，而且特别关注最高法院在拜登总统任期内做出的两项关键裁决。

在西弗吉尼亚州诉环保署案（West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency，2022）中，最高法院裁定，除非国会明确授权，政府机构不能制定涉及重大经济或政策问题的法规。在Loper Bright诉Raimondo一案（2024）中，最高法院推翻了“雪佛龙原则”，裁定联邦法院不再对联邦机构解释法律或其自身制定规则的权力加以宽容。综合来看，这些案件表明，当前大量的联邦法规超出了国会根据法律赋予的权限。

DOGE将与政府机构的法律专家携手合作，借助先进技术，依据这些判决对政府机构颁布的联邦法规进行审查。DOGE将把这一法规清单提交给特朗普总统，他可以通过行政命令立即暂停这些法规的执行，并启动审查和废除程序。这将使个人和企业从未经国会通过的非法法规下解放出来，进而刺激美国经济。

当总统废除数以千计的此类法规，批评者可能会指责其滥用行政权力。事实上，这恰恰是对行政权力滥用——即未经国会授权便出台数以千计的行政法规——的矫正。总统尊重国会的立法权，而不是尊重隐身于联邦机构内的官僚。利用行政命令增加繁复的新规则，以替代立法，是一种违宪行为。不过，为了遵循最高法院最近的裁决，使用行政命令来撤销那些错误地绕过国会的法规则是合法的、必要的。而且，在这些法规被完全废除之后，未来的总统不能简单地按下开关按钮重新激活它们，而是必须要求国会重新通过。

大幅削减联邦法规为在联邦官僚体系中进行大规模裁员提供了合理的逻辑。DOGE计划与各机构中的受任命者合作，识别每个机构为履行其宪法允许和法定授权的职能所需的最低员工数。联邦雇员的裁减人数至少应该与联邦法规的废除数量成比例：法规越少，负责执行法规的雇员就越少，而且，一旦行政机构的权限得到恰当的限制，该机构制定的法规就会越少。被裁的员工理应得到尊重，DOGE的目标是提供相应支持，帮助他们过渡到私营部门。总统可以利用现有法律，为他们提供提前退休的激励措施，并提供自愿离职补偿，以帮助他们优雅地离开。

传统观念认为，法定的公务员保护措施阻止总统乃至总统任命的政治人员解雇联邦雇员。这些保护措施的目的是保护员工免受政治报复。但该法案允许进行不针对具体员工的裁员。该法案还赋予总统“制定竞争性服务管理规则”的权力，这一权力是广泛的。以往的总统曾通过行政命令修改公务员规则，最高法院在Franklin诉Massachusetts（1992年）和Collins诉Yellen（2021年）诸案中裁定，他们在修改时并不受《行政程序法》的限制。凭借这一权力，特朗普可以实施任何数量的“竞争性服务管理规则”，以遏制行政机构的膨胀，从大规模裁员到将联邦机构迁出华盛顿地区。要求联邦雇员一周五天在办公室工作，将会导致一波自愿离职潮，我们对此表示欢迎：如果联邦雇员不愿到岗工作，试图享受疫情期间居家办公的特权，美国纳税人拒绝向其支付薪水。

最后，我们的重点是为纳税人节省成本。有些怀疑论者质疑DOGE仅通过行政命令能够削减多少联邦开支。他们提到1974年的《预算控制法》，该法案禁止总统停止国会授权的支出。特朗普曾提出该法案违宪，我们认为当前的最高法院可能会支持他的观点。但即便不依赖这一点，DOGE也将通过瞄准每年超过5000亿美元的未经国会授权或未以国会预期方式使用的联邦开支，来帮助结束联邦政府的过度开支。这些开支包括每年用于公共广播公司的5.35亿美元、用于给国际组织拨款的15亿美元，以及用于资助像计划生育组织等进步团体的近3亿美元。

联邦政府的采购流程同样存在严重问题。许多联邦合同已经多年没有经过审查。在暂时中止支付期间进行大规模审计将会带来显著的节省。最近，五角大楼连续第七次未能通过财务审计，这表明该机构的领导层几乎不知道其每年超过8000亿美元的预算是如何被花费的。批评者声称，我们无法在不削减像医疗保险（Medicare）和医疗补助（Medicaid）等福利项目的情况下有效地缩减联邦赤字，这些项目需要由国会进行缩减。然而，这种说法转移了对浪费、欺诈和滥用问题的关注，这些问题是几乎所有纳税人都希望终结的，而DOGE旨在通过识别精准的行政行动，直接给纳税人节省成本。

凭借决定性的选举授权和在最高法院的6：3保守派多数，DOGE获得了一次历史性机会，以实现联邦政府的结构性精简。我们已经做好了准备，迎接来自华盛顿根深蒂固的利益集团的强烈反击。我们预计将会胜利。现在是时候采取果断行动了。

DOGE的首要目标是在2026年7月4日（我们为项目设定的截止日期）消除自身存在的必要性。在美国建国250周年之际，没有比为我们国家交付一个让建国者骄傲的联邦政府更好的生日礼物了。

Our country is built on the basic idea that the people we elect to run the government are the ones we edict. But that's not the case in America today. Most of the provisions of the law are not laws enacted by Congress, but "rules and regulations" enacted by unelected bureaucrats... there are tens of thousands of rules and regulation every year. Most of the government's law enforcement decisions and discretionary spending are made not by the elected president or even his politically appointed officials, but by the millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants in government agencies who believe they will not be fired because of the protections of the civil service.

This approach is anti-democratic and runs counter to the vision of the Founding Fathers. It imposes significant direct and indirect costs on taxpayers. Thankfully, we have a historic opportunity to address this. On November 5, voters decisively elected Trump and authorized him to make sweeping changes that they (taxpayers) deserve.

President Trump asked the two of us to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency.

Of Government Efficiency, DOGE

- Also known as the Office of Government Efficiency) to reduce the size of the federal government. The entrenched, ballooning bureaucracy poses an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have tolerated it for a long time. That's why we're taking a different approach. We're entrepreneurs, not politicians. We are outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government committees or advisory committees, we don't just write reports or cut ribbons. We're going to cut costs.

We are assisting the Trump transition team in identifying and hiring a lean team of small government reform fighters, including some of the nation's brightest technical and legal talent. The team will work closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget in the new administration. The two of us will advise the Office of Government Efficiency at every step to implement three broad categories of reform: deregulation, administrative reduction, and cost savings. We will place particular emphasis on promoting reform through executive action based on existing legislation rather than through the enactment of new laws. The polar star of our reform will be the Constitution of the United States, focusing on two important Supreme Court decisions during his tenure.

In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022), the justices held that agencies cannot enforce regulations that involve significant economic or policy issues unless Congress expressly authorizes them. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024), the Court overturned the Chevron principle, holding that federal courts should no longer defer to federal agencies' interpretation of the law or to their own rulemaking. Together, these cases demonstrate that a large number of existing federal regulations go beyond the authority given by Congress by law.

The Office of Government Efficiency will work with legal experts in government agencies to apply these rulings to federal regulations created by those agencies, with the help of advanced technology. The Office of Government Efficiency will present the list of regulations to President Donald Trump, who can immediately suspend their implementation through executive action and initiate a review and repeal process. This would free individuals and businesses from illegal regulations that Congress never passed, and stimulate the American economy.

When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics accuse the executive of overstepping his authority. In fact, this is correcting executive overreach, i.e. the thousands of regulations enacted through executive orders that were never authorized by Congress. The president should obey Congress when legislating, not bureaucrats within federal agencies. Using executive orders to add cumbersome new rules to replace legislation is a violation of the Constitution, but using executive order to repeal statutes that wrongly circumvent Congress is legal and necessary to comply with the Supreme Court's recent authorization. And, after these regulations have been fully repealed, future presidents cannot simply press the switch to restore them, but will have to ask Congress to do so.

The drastic cuts in federal regulations provide a reasonable industry logic for mass layoffs across the federal bureaucracy. The Office of Government Efficiency intends to work with agencies' in-house appointees to determine the minimum number of employees required for an agency to perform constitutionally permitted and statutory functions. The number of federal employees cut should be at least proportional to the number of federal statutes repealed: Not only will fewer employees be needed to enforce fewer statutes, but the agency will create fewer of them once its scope of authority is properly limited. Employees whose jobs have been eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and the Government Efficiency Office aims to help them transition into the private sector. The president could use existing laws to encourage them to retire early and pay voluntary severance payments to facilitate their dignified departure.

Conventional wisdom holds that statutory civil service protections prevent the president and even his political appointees from firing federal workers. The purpose of these protections is to protect employees from political retaliation. But the regulations allow for "laying off" that does not target specific employees. The statute further authorizes the president to "develop rules governing competitive services." This power is very broad. Previous presidents have used this power to amend civil service rules by executive order, and the Supreme Court ruled in Franklin v. Massachusetts (1992) and Collins v. Yellen (2021) that they were not subject to the Administrative Procedure Act when they did so. With this authority, President Trump could curb the excesses of the executive branch by implementing a variety of "rules governing competitive services," from mass firings to relocating federal agencies out of the Washington area. Requiring federal employees to work in the office five days a week will lead to a wave of voluntary departures, which we welcome: if federal employees don't want to work, American taxpayers shouldn't pay them the privilege of staying home in the age of the coronavirus.

Finally, we are committed to cost savings for the taxpayer. Skeptics question how much federal spending the Office of Government Efficiency can control with administrative means alone. They point out that the Appropriations Control Act of 1974 prevents the president from halting spending authorized by Congress. President Trump has previously said the bill is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court is likely to uphold his view on this issue. But even without relying on this view, the Office of Government Efficiency will help end federal overspending by targeting more than $500 billion a year in federal spending that Congress did not authorize or used in ways that Congress never intended. From $535. million a year for public broadcasters and $1.5 billion in grants to international organizations, to nearly $300 million for progressive groups such as family planning.

The federal government's procurement process is also deeply flawed. Many federal contracts have gone unreviewed for years. Large-scale audits during the suspension of payments could result in significant financial savings. The Pentagon recently failed an audit for the seventh time in a row, suggesting that the agency's leadership knows almost nothing about how its more than $800 billion annual budget is spent. Critics claim that we can't effectively and meaningfully close the federal deficit without targeting entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid that Congress needs to shrink. However, this diverts attention from waste, fraud and abuse, which almost all taxpayers want to end, and the Office of Government Efficiency aims to save taxpayers immediately by identifying precise administrative measures to address them.

With a decisive electoral mandate and the Supreme Court's 6: 3 conservative majority, the Office of Government Efficiency has a historic opportunity to make structural cuts to the federal government. We are ready to deal with a shock from entrenched interests in Washington. We look forward to winning. Now is the time for decisive action. Our primary goal for the Office of Government Efficiency is to eliminate the need for its existence by July 4, 2026... the deadline we set for the project. On the 250th anniversary of our founding, there is no better birthday present than building a federal government that our founding fathers are proud of.

Move fast and break things: the DOGE Plan to Reform Government.

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