Minnesota now faces a stark financial future. Less than two years ago, the state boasted a $19 billion surplus – an unprecedented over-collection of Minnesotans’ tax dollars, but also an unprecedented opportunity to give you real, significant relief by giving it all back. Instead, the Democrats used their total control of government to blow through the surplus and raise $10 billion in taxes. The result: Minnesotans are now staring a $5.1 billion deficit just around the corner.
It wasn’t an accident or bad luck. It was the result of the Democrats’ recklessness. They spent wildly and ran our state budget into the ground, exactly as many of us predicted.
This failure falls squarely on the shoulders of Governor Tim Walz and Democrats in the legislature. They treated hardworking Minnesotans like an ATM, ignoring warnings and embracing short-term politics over long-term responsibility. Now, families are left to clean up the mess.
The top agenda item of the upcoming 2025 session will be crafting a new state budget. Unlike 2023, we have to show some responsibility and put families and taxpayers first. We cannot continue the cycle of unsustainable spending.
One reason the state budget is in rough shape: The Walz administration has presided over fraud and waste on a scale almost unheard of in the nation. In the last few weeks, several new waste and fraud scandals came to light:
- The Department of Human Services failed to recover over $40 million in Medicaid overpayments and they won’t even try to recover millions more. These funds should have gone toward providing care for vulnerable Minnesotans. Instead, they were lost due to mismanagement and inadequate internal controls.
- The FBI raided autism treatment centers for significant Medicaid fraud, including false claims for unprovided services, contributing to a 3,000% surge in autism program spending over five years. More than a dozen of the suspects were tied to the Feeding Our Future scandal.
- An addiction recovery provider, Evergreen Recovery, defrauded taxpayers by billing Medicaid $30 million for fake treatment sessions and used the funds to finance private jets, luxury cars, and designer goods.
- Fraudulent tutoring companies pressured low-income mothers to enroll in tutoring services, sold them faulty laptops, delivered subpar services run by people in the Philippines, and stole their K-12 tax refunds. Weak oversight by the Minnesota Department of Education failed to prevent the fraud.
These scandals represent a complete failure by the Walz administration to protect taxpayers and ensure public programs serve those who need them most. Even U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger agrees. He told KSTP recently that Minnesota has a fraud problem unlike any other state.
Minnesotans are rightfully fed up. Governor Walz’s administration has offered excuses, but no solutions and no action to improve oversight and accountability. While federal investigators have taken the lead in exposing these scandals, state agencies under his leadership remain asleep at the wheel.
Minnesotans deserve better than the dysfunction and corruption they’ve endured. With the trifecta over, Republicans will continue to provide real leadership that restores trust and sanity to our state.