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The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt didn’t mince words this week when she laid out the scale of corruption unraveling in Minnesota — and she’s right to put a spotlight on what is nothing less than a taxpayer theft scandal. Federal authorities have begun prosecuting the first wave of defendants tied to a sprawling scheme in the state’s Medicaid-funded housing stabilization program, and the administration is rightly framing this as systemic failure, not a collection of isolated incidents.
Federal prosecutors say eight people have been charged in the initial crackdown, part of a wider investigation that has exposed millions siphoned away from programs meant to help the elderly, people with disabilities, and struggling families. What began as an innovation in social policy has ballooned into a program that paid out far beyond expectations, with mounting evidence that many providers bilked the system with fake or inflated claims.
This isn’t the only scandal in the state — investigators have tied the housing fraud probe to the infamous Feeding Our Future case that allegedly stole roughly $250 million from a pandemic-era meal program, and officials warn the total fraud under investigation could exceed a billion dollars. Ordinary Minnesotans handing over their hard-earned paychecks to Albany and Washington should be outraged that such vast sums vanished under the watch of state officials who were supposed to safeguard public funds.
Leavitt’s message from the White House podium was straightforward: the federal government will help root out waste, but state leaders must answer for the failures that allowed fraud to metastasize. That candid line of accountability is exactly what the country needs after years of lax oversight and “trust but verify” turned into trust and forget — a permissive culture that enabled crooks to treat public programs like cash cows.
Conservatives should be unflinching in calling out the political class in Minnesota — including Governor Tim Walz and state officials — who let bureaucratic bloat and woke priorities blind them to basic auditing and verification. Republicans in Congress and state legislators are rightly demanding hearings and audits, because political platitudes won’t bring back what was stolen or fix the systems that made the theft possible.
Now is the moment for action: dismantle perverse incentives, install ironclad accountability, prosecute every bad actor, and reform programs so they serve Americans instead of lining the pockets of fraudsters. Patriots who pay taxes deserve to see their government act like a responsible steward of the public purse, and the White House’s hard line on exposing this Minnesota corruption should be the opening shot in a nationwide campaign to end the era of unchecked waste, fraud, and abuse.
