(C) Minnesota Reformer This story was originally published by Minnesota Reformer and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . First step for Walz: Take responsibility • Minnesota Reformer [1] ['J. Patrick Coolican', 'Chuck Johnson', 'Kayseh Magan', 'More From Author', 'December', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar'] Date: 2025-12-02 Gov. Tim Walz was on “Meet the Press” this week and made a few flummoxing assertions just inside a single question and answer. Let’s roll the tape: Asked Sunday by the host Kristen Welker if he takes responsibility for widespread fraud discovered in some Minnesota social services programs, Walz answered: “I take responsibility for putting people in jail. Governors don’t get to just talk theoretically, we have to solve problems. And I will note, it’s not just Somalis. Minnesota is a generous state, Minnesota is a prosperous state, a well-run state. We’re AAA bond rated. But that attracts criminals. Those people are going to jail. We’re doing everything we can. But to demonize an entire community on the actions of a few? It’s lazy.” Start from the bottom: Do fraudsters seek out states with AAA bond ratings? I have trouble picturing a couple scammers poring over the S & P’s bond ratings, looking at each other and saying, “We must go north!” Especially since our fraud problem is homegrown. Also, it’s a real shame that being a “well-run state” attracts fraud, per Walz. Sorta puts us in a difficult bind: Do we want a “well-run state”? If we do, I guess we’re inviting fraud. Bummer. At the start of his answer, Walz takes responsibility for “putting people in jail.” This is an interesting assertion, in the Minnesota sense. The federal government of both Democratic and Republican administrations have charged more than 80 people with stealing from food aid and Medicaid programs. What would Walz’s role be in sending people to federal prison after federal prosecutions? His spokeswoman sent me this statement: “Prosecutions don’t materialize out of thin air. Department of Human Services does extensive investigative work in collaboration with federal prosecutors, and the governor has created a specialized law enforcement fraud unit at the (Bureau of Criminal Apprehension). The executive’s job is to assist law enforcement and prosecutors in every way possible, not to undermine their work by pardoning fraudsters.” The last bit is a swipe at President Donald Trump, who has declared amnesty for just about every white-collar criminal in America. (And never forget the 1,600 insurrectionists.) OK, fair enough. I have no doubt that Walz and his team are intensely focused on this issue these days, now that it’s blown up in their faces, and that the Department of Human Services and BCA are helping the feds develop cases that are leading to convictions. Bravo. But to call the recent efforts tardy is vastly understating it. When the Reformer reported in 2024 that the FBI was investigating autism centers on the suspicion of phony billing, a DHS assistant commissioner waved us off when we asked about explosive growth of the program, which seemingly should have raised red flags: “I don’t think we are surprised or particularly disturbed by the rate of growth,” she said. She also told us the the growth was “pretty consistent” with other DHS programs, such as “housing stabilization services,” which is pretty funny in retrospect because that program was so riddled with fraud that Walz moved to shut it down this summer. In the spring of 2025, even as a February Star Tribune report raised questions about the potential for fraud in the housing stability program, Walz’s budget request included funding for additional DHS positions to keep up with the explosive growth of the program, the Strib reported. “Where it could, DHS moved to speed up processing times and let more individuals into the program.” A defense lawyer for some of the defendants in the various fraud cases recently told The New York Times that it was all so easy they figured it must be OK to steal: “No one was doing anything about the red flags. It was like someone was stealing money from the cookie jar and they kept refilling it,” he said. That doesn’t sound like “extensive investigation” to me. As a result of this mess, Minnesota’s reputation for clean government and business has been badly damaged. As worrisome: tens of thousands of Somali-Americans — who happen to have the same ancestral background as most of the Minnesota scammers, but nothing else in common — have been slandered by Trump and his cronies. And now the community will face the terror of ICE. But it all started with the Walz administration’s feckless failures. Unfortunately, Trump and the internet have ushered in the political era of brazening it out. Never apologize. Never take responsibility. Spew whatever argle-bargle comes in your mind. Attack. Repeat. This behavior should be familiar to Walz, a former high school geography teacher and football coach. It’s the behavior of adolescents, and it’s consumed our entire politico-media system. To his credit, Walz’s love of Minnesotans and Minnesota is that of the convert: ardent and true. So he should consider respecting our intelligence, and coming clean about how he and key people in his administration failed us. It would be a start. If he’s unwilling to do so, maybe it’s time for a courageous Democrat to consider a primary challenge. [END] --- [1] Url: https://minnesotareformer.com/2025/12/02/first-step-for-walz-take-responsibility/ Published and (C) by Minnesota Reformer Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/MnReformer/