Imagine you’re a parent in Minnesota who has an autistic child who needs one-on-one therapy. Like many low-income families in the state, you might have to rely on government programs.
But when you seek help, you’re told there’s a waiting list because the programs are “oversubscribed.” Meanwhile, bad actors are getting away with billing Medicaid for autism services that are never provided. Instead, these people use these funds to purchase luxury cars, international travel, and even fund terrorist groups in Somalia.
This scenario is precisely what many families have faced in Minnesota. In recent weeks, several reports have exposed that about $9 billion in taxpayer funding has been stolen through fraud.
And the state’s government seems unable or unwilling to address it. This is what makes Gov. Tim Walz’s administration such a disgrace. But Walz’s ineptitude is not an outlier. Indeed, it’s actually par for the course — even at the federal level.
The fraud began as a small operation. But it grew into what First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson called “staggering, industrial-scale fraud.”
At the heart of the issue was Feeding Our Future, a Minneapolis nonprofit that defrauded a federal child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic. It claimed to be feeding tens of thousands of hungry children between 2020 and 2022.
But the problem was that these children didn’t exist, according to CBS News. There were no meals, except the ones the perpetrators were able to eat because they were stealing money.
Another scheme involved Empire Cuisine & Market, a small halal grocery store in Shakopee. The owners enrolled in the Federal Child Nutrition Program in April 2020, within weeks of registering the company with the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office.
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The company opened several food program sites and falsely claimed they were also serving thousands of meals to children each day. Yet, there were no meals.
But the federal funding spigot kept flowing.
Federal prosecutors have convicted 57 defendants in the Feeding Our Future case alone. But this is just one of many programs the FBI is investigating.
But here’s the part that will really tighten your jaws — especially if you live in Minnesota.
The state’s Department of Education oversaw Feeding Our Future. The agency received 30 complaints about the organization.
By law, state agencies must promptly investigate complaints about federal nutrition programs. Yet, the agency failed to examine many of the complaints, according to a state audit. Even when it did look into some of the submissions, its inquiry was haphazard and went nowhere.
I imagine the investigations probably went something like this:
“Hey, are y’all doing fraud up in here?”
“No.”
“Okay, have a great day.”
In one case, a food vendor reported that the organization demanded a kickback and retaliated when the vendor refused. What did Minnesota’s Education Department do? They forwarded the complaint to Feeding Our Future and asked it to investigate itself, which is about as smart as leaving your young daughter alone with Joe Biden.
The Walz administration’s response to this issue tells you everything you need to know about government accountability. They are diligent about taking your money through taxation. But after that, it seems they don’t really care where it ends up.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) highlighted even more federal waste in his latest Festivus Report, where we learned that our government spent oodles of cash on worthy endeavors such as getting beagles hooked on cocaine and then killing them.
This is going to keep happening. Once the furor dies down and America moves on to the next outrage, Minnesota will go back to doing what it was doing before: Empowering criminals.
But this isn’t just about Walz. State governments are notorious for misusing taxpayer funds and making it easy for bad actors to swindle these programs. Until people are willing to hold these people accountable, there is no reason for them to change.
Even further, if we have learned anything from Minnesota, it is this: Government can never be trusted with your money.
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