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Hello from the State Capitol,
Sadly, it’s becoming another day, another fraud here in the land of 10,000 lakes.
Yesterday, we learned that as part of a wide-ranging Medicaid fraud investigation, the FBI served search warrants in St. Cloud and Minneapolis. The warrant shows at least twelve people charged in the Feeding Our Future case owned, received money from or were associated with autism centers that received state funding for providing services.
These raids follow another report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor that found the Department of Human Services has not attempted to recover substantial overpayments totaling more than $40 million to Medical Assistance providers and has not accurately reported its accounts receivable balance to Minnesota Management and Budget for inclusion in the state’s financial statements since 2019.
In July, Governor Walz said that he was “not aware” of the FBI investigation and seemed unaware of allegations of fraud in Minnesota’s autism program. This is par for the course.
Here’s a reminder of some of the other documented fraud nonsense that has occurred during Democrat control of this state: Feeding our Future - $250 million; CCAP/child care - $100 million; Medicaid - $50 million; frontline workers - $45 million.
And many of these same Democrats who will tell you with a straight face next year that more money is needed to fund state government programs, even though they wasted a nearly $20 billion budget surplus last session, raised your taxes by more than $10 billion, increased government spending by nearly 40%, and tried to downplay that fraud appears to be running rampant.
Thanks to these poorly thought-out financial choices, Minnesota is expected to face a $5 billion budget deficit in two years.
House Republicans are ready to get to work this legislative session to put an end to the fraud madness and restore accountability in government. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars have been stolen by people who are cheating the system. Enough is enough.
NEW COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS
As you may recall from a previous update, I will serve as Republican vice-chairwoman on the Minnesota House Capital Investment Committee this session. This week, I learned that I will also serve on the Education Policy and Transportation Finance and Policy committees.
Have a good weekend,
Marj
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