海德沙龙

Jeb Bush ’ s Beltway Climb 杰布·布什的华府攀登路 作者：社论 @2015-7-24

译者：王涵秋    校对：Animu (@丹哲生)

来源：华尔街日报

网址： http://www.wsj.com/articles/jeb-bushs-beltway-climb-1437693373 He proposes reforms that are good, bad and ugly. 他提出的改革之中，有好的，有坏的，还有不堪入目的 As Florida Governor, Jeb Bush conquered what he called “Mount Tallahassee,” and now that he’s running for President he is proposing to do the same to “Mount Washington.” On Monday he offered some initial ideas on how to do it, and some are better than others.

作为佛罗里达州州长，杰布·布什已经成功登上了他所称的“塔拉哈西之巅”；既已开始竞选总统，他还要登上“华盛顿之巅”。本周一，他已就如何开展竞选提出了一些初步想法，其中某些胜过另一些。

The good news is that he wants to start by reducing the size of the bureaucratic Everest. “You can have a fast-expanding economy or you can have a fast expanding government, but you can’t have both,” he said in a speech at Florida State University.

好消息是，他打算从裁减巨如珠峰的官僚机构入手。在佛罗里达州州立大学的一次演讲中他说道：“你要么有个迅速扩张的经济，要么有个迅速扩张的政府，但你不可能两者兼得。”

His best idea would freeze the federal workforce and then reduce it by 10% over four years through attrition. In particular he proposes a “three-out, one-in” rule—one new hire for every three who leave.

杰布·布什最好的主意是，冻结现有的联邦政府雇员规模，并于之后四年内逐渐削减10%的雇员数量。特别是，他提出了“三出一进”则——每三人离职才可招募一位新员工。

According to the White House budget office historical tables, that would shrink federal civilian employment by some 210,000 from the 2.114 million full-time equivalent (FTE) positions in the executive branch in 2015. As recently as 2008 there were 1.875 million FTEs.

根据白宫预算办公室以往的数据可知，杰布·布什的政策，将使2015年行政部门中的联邦非军事雇员数量，从目前的211.4万人（按全职工时折算）缩减约21万人。晚至2008年，该数字还仅为曾为187.5万FTEs。【 译注：FTE，full-time equivalent，一种人力资源统计指标，意为按全职工时折算后的雇员人数，假如全职工时为8小时，那么每天工作2小时兼职雇员，便计为0.25个FTE。 】

For skeptics who doubt this is possible, Mr. Bush pointed to his record in Florida, where the state workforce fell by 11% over his eight years despite a rising state population. He can also point to Journal contributor and NYU scholar Paul Light, who has described the “inefficiency and bloat” of more than 10,000 senior executives “who occupy more than 60 layers of management just at the top” of the Washington organization chart. Ten percent may be shooting too low.

面对那些怀疑这是否可能做到的质疑者，他拿出了自己在佛州的记录，在其执政的8年内，尽管人口增长，该州雇员仍缩减了11%。他还援引了杂志撰稿人、纽约大学学者Paul Light的论点，后者将1万多资深行政官员的低效与臃肿形容为“这些人占据了管理部门的60层，层层积压在华盛顿组织结构图的上端”。或许砍去10%只嫌太少。

Mr. Bush also wants a line-item veto along the lines Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan has proposed. This is a hardy perennial, but it would at the margin enhance the power of a President who wants to control spending (unlike the current one).

布什先生还提倡一种类似威斯康星州共和党人保罗·瑞安（Paul Ryan）提出的部分否决权【 译注：美国总统只有完全认可或完全否决某一立法的权力。最近一次鲜有例外发生在克林顿任上，但仅过了两年，最高法院便裁定部分否决权违宪。 】这是个屡屡被提出的经年老话题了，不过它确可在边际上增强一位有意控制支出的总统的权力（而非像在任这位）。

“If we reform how government works,” Mr. Bush said, “and build capacity for people to achieve earned success by our very nature we’ll all become conservatives because the demands on government will subside.”

“如果我们能改革政府的工作方式，”布什先生说，“为人民创造一个靠自己双手劳动赢得成功的环境，那么我们会统统成为保守派，因为我们将不再有求于政府。”

Mr. Bush’s other ideas are more populist gimmicks than genuine reforms. Take his pitch to dock the pay of Senators and Congressmen when they don’t show up for votes. We’d be happier if a couple hundred of them didn’t show up at all. But in any case Mr. Bush couldn’t do this without Congress’s consent, and he’d need their votes to get more important things done. Americans can always throw the bums out during elections.

至于布什先生的其他想法，与其说真正的改革，倒像是亲民的噱头。比如呼吁在参议员和众议员不出席投票时扣他们工资的提案。其实要是有几百位议员不出席投票，我们会更开心。但无论如何，布什先生不可能未经国会同意就这么做，他需要他们的选票来完成更重要的事情。而且在选举期间，美国人总是可以把那些尸位素餐的人给拉下马。

Even worse is Mr. Bush’s call for a six-year ban on lobbying for former members of the House and Senate, as well as expanding the definition of lobbyist so more people come under its restrictions. This buys into the liberal narrative that the problem in Washington is too many lobbyists.

更糟糕的是，布什先生提出的对卸任国会议员施加在6年内禁止游说的禁令，并且扩大说客的定义，使得更多人被该禁令所约束。如此便投合了自由派的说法，即华盛顿的问题是说客太多。

Businesses have no choice but to lobby a government that can cripple them with a single new regulation. The First Amendment also gives all Americans the right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

生意人游说政府实属情非得已，毕竟政府只需一条新管制法规即可让他们遭殃。而且第一宪法修正案也给予了所有美国公民“就其委屈苦衷向政府请愿申诉”的权利。

The real problem is the opportunities for corruption and special dealing that a too-large government provides. Every new regulation or twist of the tax code is an opening for some powerful Member to assist the powerful. But the solution is to reduce the size and scope of the regulatory state and to reform the tax code. Mr. Bush says he plans to propose both regulatory and tax reforms, and those will do more to reduce the influence of lobbyists than will restrictions on lobbyists that will be evaded in any case.

真正的问题在于一个过于庞大的政府创造了腐败及特殊对待的机会。每次新设管制、每次税法繁琐化，都为一些权势人物去支援另一些权势人物创造了新契机。但解决办法是减少政府管制的规模和范围，并改革税法。布什先生说他计划提出管制和税收两方面兼有的改革，比起用禁令规限说客，这些改革才更能缩减他们的影响，而禁令总是会被绕过。

One other benefit of a government that tries to do fewer things with fewer people: It might be able to launch a website without crashing.

一个致力于雇更少人、做更少事的政府，将带来的另一个好处：它或许有能力建成一个不会崩溃的网站了。【 编注：这句似乎在嘲讽联邦政府专为奥巴马医保建立的网站，该网站花了大价钱，却故障频频。 】

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