Exclusive: Warren's Plan for Musk to Cut U.S. Spending

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

66% : " One area ripe for bipartisan cooperation may be tackling wasteful spending and abuse in the healthcare industry, such as ending or overhauling the Medicare Advantage insurance program, which non-partisan analysts estimate overcharged taxpayers in 2024 by more than $83 billion last year alone.
62% : Equally significant will be the chorus of deficit hawks who insist the only way to remedy a bloated federal government is to restructure entitlement programs at risk of collapse in 10 years.
58% : In a letter she sent him Thursday morning, Warren proposed 30 recommendations for eliminating $2 trillion in federal spending over the next decade, according to a copy of the letter obtained by TIME.
58% : Warren also wants to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, an idea for which Trump has previously expressed support.
52% : But for some of Washington's most strident voices arguing for government spending reforms, it represents a chance for ideas usually relegated to white papers to finally get a full airing.
49% : The list includes several of the progressive icon's long-held policy fixations: renegotiating Department of Defense (DOD) contracts that independent analysts have found waste billions each year; reforming the Medicare Advantage insurance program and allowing Medicare to negotiate lower costs of prescription drugs; and closing tax loopholes for corporations and the wealthiest earners.
46% : "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.
43% : "There's no way to meaningfully improve the deficit and debt situation without meaningful reforms to entitlements, which we also need to do to avert insolvency for Social Security and Medicare," says Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
42% : That may be due to political constraints.
39% : While many Democrats in Congress want nothing to do with the billionaire who spent a fortune to help elect Donald Trump, the Massachusetts Senator says she wants to find common ground with Musk in his new role leading the White House's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
38% : Warren also wants to eliminate or substantially reduce funding for the Charter Schools Program, which was designed to provide federal grants for charter schools but which the Government Accountability Office has found mismanages and wastes most of its funding.
28% : Still, Trump won the election after campaigning on cutting federal spending.
22% : Because Trump vowed on the campaign trail not to touch Medicare and Social Security, and Republicans refuse to cut military spending, DOGE will have to find less conventional ideas to fulfill Musk's budget-slashing fantasy.
8% : At the same time, Warren proposed cracking down on Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), which Trump once castigated as "famous middlemen" who "rip off Medicare patients."

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