The Somali daycare will seem quaint once the real accounting is done. Unfortunately, it’s hard to look at the fraud mess in Minnesota and not say “Lot of that goin’ around.” Minnesota (state bird: the common loon) is the canary in the coal mine of the Biden era experiment of using COVID as an excuse to transfer trillions in wealth to favored coalition groups.
Certainly, the malfeasance that’s brought down Governor Tim Walz seems to be particularly acute in his state. His government and even his office appear to have been singularly paralyzed by the fear of being called racist for noticing that billions in public money were disappearing among Minnesota’s Somali diaspora. The “Feeding Our Future” program that started the investigations rolling in Minnesota began during COVID. The grifters received federal money to feed local children. The money came and nobody got fed. The case now has nearly 80 indictments for fraud worth at least $250 million. There was also housing program fraud, healthcare program fraud, and, most dramatically, childcare program fraud.
But it isn’t just The North Star State, or Somali-run daycares, and the problem isn’t new. Look around in the program descriptions of COVID relief or so-called “Build Back Better” programs and notice how frequently they mention “underserved” or “marginalized” communities, regardless of what the program was meant to provide.
As far back as 2023, the Associated Press News was reporting that the government had lost more than $200 billion in COVID-19 aid to fraud:
And before that, it became obvious that amid the panic and confusion of COVID, “stewardship” of taxpayer money wasn’t a priority at even the highest level of government. In 2022, the Functional Government Initiative (FGI) uncovered that being Biden administration-adjacent was a good place to be when the COVID cash was flowing.
The “Paycheck Protection Program,” which provided emergency loans to businesses through the Small Business Administration, began during Trump’s first administration. However, a FGI report showed that $272 million was loaned to former senior Biden administration appointees, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. While PPP’s overall forgiveness rate was 80 percent, that forgiveness rate increased to 95 percent for the loans to those special interests. In addition to more than a quarter billion in taxpayer loans and more than $220 million forgiven, many of these loans received excess fees of the loaned amount, totaling more than $1.8 million, likely paid to preferred banks and lenders.
Apparently, if you knew somebody high up in the Biden administration, you had a better chance of getting a PPP loan and a better chance of having it forgiven over others. And, if you played your cards right, you could come out ahead.
That doesn’t lend much confidence that there were proper controls and oversight on hundreds of billions that eventually flowed from taxpayers to the government to … whom? Companies building offshore wind boondoggles ($191 million in waived fees)? DEI consultants for the infantry ($270 million)? Green energy companies run by Biden insiders ($14 billion?) Remember the Biden EPA employee who likened the rush to spend Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund money before Trump’s second inauguration day to “Throwing gold bars off the Titanic?”
The old reliable metaphors about drunken sailors are completely inadequate to the spree of reckless spending under the Biden administration. And there was little incentive (and in the case of the EPA, few resources) for responsible oversight of where and how all those billions were spent. Depending on your perspective, though, that could be a feature, not a bug. If program descriptions are sprinkled liberally with references to “underserved” or “marginalized” communities, demanding accountability becomes an act of bigotry. Just ask Minnesota.
Roderick Law is the communications director for the Functional Government Initiative.