As Minnesota governor, Democrat vice presidential nominee Tim Walz oversaw a “free meals for kids” scheme that saw a whopping $250 million in taxpayer money handed to fraudsters and blown luxury goods and overseas real estate.
70 people have been charged so far in connection with the fraud scheme since 2022.
The Feeding Our Future program used a quarter-billion in federal tax dollars from the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE).
The federally funded meal assistance plan was meant to help give free meals to eligible children and adults who were struggling due to shutdowns during the pandemic.
However, the federal taxpayer money was instead used to fund the lavish lifestyles of criminals.
In a statement regarding the scandal, Billy Glahn, an adjunct policy fellow with the Minnesota-based Center of the American Experiment, said:
“At least a quarter billion dollars was stolen by fraudsters.
“The question, of course, came up: How did the state Department of Education let $250 million out the door to people who were later convicted of defrauding the program?
“The legislative auditor took this on as one of her projects and did this report looking at how the department oversaw a single one of these nonprofits involved.”
Glahn is referencing a report from the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA).
The OLA frequently releases state government oversight reports.
The report about the fraud scheme, titled “Minnesota Department of Education: Oversight of Feeding Our Future,” was released in June.
In it, legislative auditor Judy Randall concludes that MDE officials told OLA they quickly identified and stopped the fraud.
However, OLA Walz’s administration didn’t do enough to prevent $250 million in stolen funds.
“MDE officials told us that the department began to have concerns about Feeding Our Future only after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report states.
“However, we think MDE failed to act on warning signs known to the department prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and prior to the start of the alleged fraud.”
The report later adds:
“More broadly, the failures we highlight in this report are symptoms of a department that was ill-prepared to respond to the issues it encountered with Feeding Our Future.”
Critics note this failure goes back to Walz’s leadership as governor.
“The buck has to stop somewhere,” as Glahn put it.
“He is the chief executive of the state.
“All of the people at the Department of Education and the other departments where fraud has taken place were appointed by him,” Glahn noted.
“So he appoints the commissioner, the deputy commissioner, assistant commissioners.
“They were all appointed by him. They all report to him.
“And these are the folks whom the legislative auditor has documented failed to do their job.
“So where does the buck stop?”
Glahn said Minnesota residents may be surprised that their state is not the well-oiled machine it once was.
His response to the scandal, he said, is “much more cynical.”
“It’s been uncovered that a lot of these people who were indicted . . . and their spouses and immediate family members and business partners have given a lot of money to Democrats, to campaign contributions,” Glahn noted.
“So, they’re campaign contributors.
“And then when these nonprofits were having trouble with the Department of Education, the Department of Education shut off the money a couple of times and failed, or they didn’t have the courage or convictions, and politicians went to bat for the nonprofits.”
Glahn added that the scheme highlights the notion that “government is about beneficiaries and getting money out the door, not about policing and oversight and regulatory mindset and making sure that the people are eligible” for such benefits programs.
The taxpayer funds, from hard-working Americans across the country, were used to fund the extravagant lifestyles of fraudsters.
Fraud suspects spent the money on everything from residential property to vehicles, luxury goods, jewelry, cryptocurrency, hotels and restaurants, airplane tickets and more.
In a statement to local news outlet the Star Tribune, a spokesperson for Walz said:
“We appreciate the OLA’s work and often agree with them, which is why state agencies have implemented many of their suggestions.”
The spokesperson added that “[t]here are also times when the OLA’s suggestions don’t apply because the audits come out years after we’ve resolved an issue, they suggest actions that have already been taken, or they evaluate programs that no longer exist.”
“Sometimes, state agencies have expertise and knowledge that the OLA does not, and in those cases, we may fundamentally disagree,” according to the Star Tribune.
The Republican candidate for Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District, Joe Teirab, blasted Walz over the scandal.
Teirab said in a post on X that the fraud under Walz’s watch has exceeded half a billion dollars.
“Governor Walz and the people he directly hired and oversaw lost half a billion dollars to fraud in a few short years as governor,” Teirab said.
“Imagine fraud at that scale nationwide.
“If every state lost that much, the amount lost to fraud would be greater than the annual budgets of over 15 states.”
In a follow-up post responding to an ABC story on the fraud scandal, Teirab said:
“It isn’t just the Feeding Our Future case.
“Over half a billion dollars has been lost by his Administration so far, with instances of waste and/or fraud in child care programs, the frontline worker bonus pay program, unemployment benefits, Medicaid programs, and more,” he explained.
“It’s not the fact that his Administration let fraudsters walk away with over $250 million meant to feed hungry kids.
“It’s the fact that that wasn’t a wake-up call and that there still hasn’t been any accountability.
“Not one state employee has been fired for any of this.”
Critics of Walz’s handling of taxpayer funds have also noted an $18 billion surplus in Walz’s $72 billion budget that was initially supposed to be returned to taxpayers.
However, it was spent on other state initiatives instead.
In March, ,” House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth said:
“We know that when there is tax relief offered for young families… as great as that sounds, and we are appreciative of that point if Minnesota wasn’t such an expensive place to live.
“In addition to that $18 billion of surplus that is now gone, taxes and fees – our state budget – was raised by another $10 billion.
“We grew government in a way that is unsustainable.”
