- Senator Elizabeth Warren told Elon Musk that she will work with DOGE to reduce wasteful federal spending.
- Her recommendations to cut spending included slashing the defense budget and gutting federal programs.
- There is growing bipartisan support for working with DOGE to achieve its spending cut goals.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she is “glad” to work with her sometimes friendly partner, Elon Musk, to cut wasteful federal spending.
On Thursday, Warren sent a letter to Musk — who heads President Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — detailing 30 recommendations to reduce government spending, including earmarking the Defense Department budget, fraud in Medicare programs and education. funding for for-profit schools.
Musk and his former DOGE co-head Vivek Ramaswamy initially proposed cutting $2 trillion in federal spending, but Musk later backed away from that goal and said during an interview in early January that DOGE “has had a good shot ” to reach $1 trillion in cuts.
While Warren said she disagrees with some of Musk’s initial proposals to cut spending, such as cutting veterans’ benefits, she said she agrees with Musk that there is too much wasted federal spending.
“If you’re serious about working together in good faith to cut government spending — in a way that doesn’t hurt the middle class — I have proposals for your consideration,” Warren said.
One of Warren’s recommendations included cutting spending at the Defense Department, which accounts for 14% of total government spending, according to year-to-date Treasury data. It’s an idea that already has bipartisan support — Rep. Ro Khanna called out contractors overburdening the department in a December op-ed and said she would work with DOGE, while GOP Sen. Joni Ernst also voiced her support for cutting defense spending in a November letter.
Musk has also previously been critical of defense spending and said it was “not sustainable” during a speech in November.
One of Warren’s other recommendations was to crack down on fraud in health care programs. Several policy experts previously told BI that rooting out fraud in programs like Medicare could be an area for a quick DOGE win, as Musk could leverage his tech experience in Silicon Valley to help root out fraudulent payments and improper in federal programs.
Warren’s letter to Musk comes amid their long public spat, and her recommendations contain many of her signature positions that Musk and some GOP lawmakers are unlikely to support. They include eliminating funding for charter schools, limiting federal grants to for-profit universities and closing tax loopholes for the wealthy. Warren before Musk singled out as one of the many billionaires who have to pay more taxes.
Musk and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Other recommendations for DOGE abbreviations
Trump formally established DOGE as an office within the White House in an executive order on Monday. DOGE’s mission under the order is narrower than originally proposed — it would focus on modernizing IT systems — and it’s unclear how exactly the agency will initiate spending cuts.
However, economic experts and policymakers have continued to outline areas that Musk should target. William Gale, a senior fellow at the progressive Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, wrote in an opinion piece Wednesday that DOGE should consider tax expenditures, which could take the form of tax credits and deductions, and “they could to continue for years without public attention or review,” Gale wrote.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers also have ideas. Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz previously told BI that he wants to aim to reorganize the Department of Homeland Security to allow FEMA and the Secret Service to report directly to the president, streamlining the chain of command.
“If that conversation is going to happen here, I’m happy to be at the table,” Moskowitz said. “And if they want to do stupid things, I’m going to call it out and vote against it.”
Ernst’s spending cuts in November RECOMMENDATIONS it also included eliminating vacant federal buildings, auditing the Internal Revenue Service, and reducing fraud in SNAP benefits.