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Minnesotans woke up this week to what should be a national humiliation — a string of fraud scandals so brazen they read like a how-to guide for stealing taxpayer money. As E.D. Hill pointed out on Greg Kelly Reports, ordinary people who pay taxes and obey the law deserve better than political elites who let systems rot while money vanishes. The federal prosecutions pouring out of Minneapolis make clear this was not the work of a few bad apples but a widespread exploitation of government programs.
The Feeding Our Future case alone should be a wake-up call for every level of government: prosecutors say it siphoned off between $250 million and $300 million in pandemic-era child nutrition funds and has led to dozens of convictions and long prison sentences for those involved. Federal press releases show repeated guilty pleas and substantial sentences for defendants who turned pandemic relief into luxury living, not food for kids. That kind of theft — stealing from the most vulnerable during a crisis — is unforgivable and must be met with the full force of the law.
Worse, Feeding Our Future is only one thread in a much larger web of fraud: federal filings and indictments now describe sprawling schemes in Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services, autism therapy (EIDBI), and Integrated Community Supports programs that funneled Medicaid and state dollars into shell companies and hotel rooms instead of care. The Department of Justice and federal investigators have been unmasked telling figures and trends that show these programs ballooned into ripe targets for exploitation because of lax oversight and low barriers to entry. Conservatives have been warning for years that expanding entitlement programs without accountability invites abuse — Minnesota’s crisis proves that warning true.
It’s also alarming to see testimony and committee findings suggesting political leaders and agencies either ignored warnings or mismanaged oversight at the very moment fraud began to explode. Minnesota House Republicans and members of the state’s fraud oversight committees have publicly demanded answers about what agency officials knew and when, because the pattern of warnings-ignored then money-lost stinks of negligence if not worse. If elected officials put politics ahead of protecting taxpayers, there should be consequences — not talking points and cover-ups.
The remedy is obvious: clean house, prosecute thoroughly, and redesign these programs so they help real people instead of criminal enterprises. Conservatives must push for independent audits, criminal referrals where warranted, and legislative fixes that restore common-sense verification and local accountability. Minnesotans built this state on honesty and hard work; they deserve a government that defends that legacy rather than enabling grifters to game the system.
