While U.S. President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency has faced intense criticism and even multiple lawsuits, some progressive groups and lawmakers are also engaging, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday.
When Trump announced DOGE in November, he said the presidential advisory commission would work to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday detailed 30 proposals that would cut at least $2 trillion of government spending over the next decade.
In a lengthy letter to the chair of DOGE, billionaire Elon Musk, that was first reported by Time, Warren highlighted that “you have publicly called for sizable cuts in funding—from $500 billion in annual spending to ‘at least’ $2 trillion in cuts to federal spending—although recently, you said you may not actually be able to meet that goal.”
“I have very serious concerns about both the DOGE process and the policies that you have publicly discussed to date,” she wrote. “With regard to process, as I raised in a still-unanswered letter to President-elect Trump regarding Mr. Musk sent on December 16, 2024, it is not clear that you and other DOGE leaders are able to identify and mitigate your conflicts of interest and adhere to commonsense ethics standards. As a result, the committee appears to be a venue for corruption, allowing well-connected billionaires to put government policies in place that enrich them while hurting ordinary Americans.”
“I am disturbed by the dangerous proposals you have discussed and released to date: proposals from you and your allies to cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, veterans’ benefits, and other programs.”
“With regard to policy, I am disturbed by the dangerous proposals you have discussed and released to date: proposals from you and your allies to cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, veterans’ benefits, and other programs that tens of millions of Americans count on and rely on are unrealistic and cruel. It would be outrageous to cut these programs in the name of government thriftiness while handing out trillions of dollars in tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations,” she continued. “But, your broad point—that the federal government spends trillions of dollars on wasteful spending is correct. And if you are serious about working together in good faith to cut government spending—in a way that does not harm the middle class—I have proposals for your consideration.”
The letter features several recommendations to cut spending at the U.S. Department of Defense, which has never passed an audit. Specifically, it says: negotiate better contracts, recreate a renegotiation board to challenge excess profits, stop using the military to perform civilian jobs, end corporate welfare for Pentagon contractors and foreign governments, instruct the agency to stop gaming the budget process, boost energy efficiency and industry competition, tackle repair restrictions on military equipment, and “avert wasteful government spending on plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site.”
Warren also has suggestions for federal healthcare programs, such as curbing taxpayer abuse by Medicare Advantage insurers, engaging in more Medicare negotiations to lower prescription drug costs, supporting efforts to crack down on pharmacy benefit managers, quashing patent abuses by the pharmaceutical industry, exercising march-in rights to reduce medication prices, breaking up conglomerates, and keeping private equity out of the industry.
To save on education, the senator called for eliminating or reducing funding for the federal Charter Schools Program and making for-profit colleges ineligible for federal grant aid. On the taxation front, she advised fully funding the Internal Revenue Service as well as clawing back tax expenditures and closing loopholes for the wealthy.
Her letter further suggests keeping the federal government’s cloud and other information technology markets competitive, reducing waste in unnecessary federal arrests and detention programs, and working with the Government Accountability Office, inspector general offices, and other watchdogs “to detect and combat fraud, waste, and abuse.”
“DOGE’s agenda has focused on limiting the size of the federal government to increase efficiency and save taxpayer dollars. As the list above indicates, there are many opportunities for identifying savings that would not hurt the middle class, and that would eliminate wasteful special interest spending,” Warren wrote. “But focusing solely on cutting federal budgets is myopic and counterproductive, and misses key ways in which the government can cut costs for ordinary Americans, saving them billions of dollars.”
“For example, the federal government should continue its efforts to target abusive surprise fees charged by businesses across the economy,” she noted, pointing to rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, U.S. Department of Transportation, and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) targeting “junk fees.”
Empowering the U.S. Department of Justice and the FTC “to break up monopolies and ensure competition would have extraordinary benefits for families,” the senator wrote. She also argued that “DOGE should ensure that federal agency contracts do not create monopolies that can hike prices for small businesses and consumers indefinitely.”
“By making the tax code fairer, DOGE recommendations could provide a roadmap for additional government revenues that could be used for important investments or to cut the deficit,” she added, spotlighting the anticipated benefits of ending tax breaks and loopholes for offshoring jobs and profits, raising the corporate tax rate and the corporate alternative minimum tax rate, and enacting her “Ultra-Millionaire Tax.”
“In the interest of taking aggressive, bipartisan action to ensure sustainable spending, protect taxpayer dollars, curb abusive practices by giant corporations, and improve middle-class Americans’ quality of life,” Warren concluded, “I would be happy to work with you on these matters.”
Warren’s letter followed an MSNBCop-ed that Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote in December, offering Musk some recommendations, and a report that the watchdog Public Citizen released earlier this month identifying “what an efficiency agenda based on evidence, not ideology, would include,” in the words of the group’s co-president, Robert Weissman, who has formally requested to join DOGE to serve as a voice “for the interests of consumers and the public.”
While some of Warren, Khanna, and Public Citizen’s proposals could win bipartisan support, many would likely be met with strong resistance from the Trump White House and Republican-controlled Congress. As Time put it, “Her missive might do more to make a point than spur an improbable collaboration.”
