Minnesota fraud scandal prompts laws named after Walz

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FIRST ON FOX: A Republican lawmaker has reacted to the large unfolding fraud scandal in Minnesota with laws aimed toward stopping extra taxpayer {dollars} from being wasted at america Division of Well being and Human Providers.

Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks has launched the Welfare Abuse and Laundering Zillions Act, or the "WALZ Act," which might require HHS' Workplace of Inspector Normal to open investigations into any program that sees a ten% or higher enhance in whole funds over any six-month interval inside a fiscal 12 months.

Beneath the invoice, HHS would now not have discretion to disregard sudden billing will increase that critics say usually sign fraud schemes, significantly in massive entitlement applications.

The invoice comes amid revelations in latest months that Minnesota’s federally funded well being and vitamin applications have been rife with fraud to the tune of doubtless as much as $9 billion, federal prosecutors mentioned final week.

OMAR ACCUSED BY GOP OPPONENT OF OPENING UP THE DOOR TO MASSIVE MINNEAPOLIS FRAUD: 'DEEP, DEEP TIES'

Gov. Tim Walz walks close to the Minnesota state Capitol in St Paul on Oct. 7, 2025. (Abbie Parr/AP Picture)

Critics have made Walz the face of the scandal, given the truth that issues over the fraud date again to 2019, when he took workplace and the lack of the state, which he serves as the highest govt, to deal with the issue over the past 5 years.

"That is on my watch," Walz informed reporters on Friday. "I'm accountable for this. And extra importantly, I'm the one that can repair it."

MEDIA ‘COMPLICITY’ BLAMED AS FEDS SAY MINNESOTA FRAUD CRISIS COULD REACH $9B: 'SHOWN THEIR TRUE COLORS'

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks speaks throughout a information convention on the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 16, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Pictures)

Miller-Meeks informed Fox Information Digital the scenario in Minnesota represents a "jaw-dropping failure of management."

"That is what occurs when soft-on-crime Democrats run the present: zero accountability, zero oversight and taxpayers left holding the bag," the Iowa Republican continued. "The WALZ Act is called for a cause, to make sure this stage of negligence can by no means be repeated anyplace else in America. This invoice places onerous safeguards in place to guard taxpayer {dollars}, shut the door on rip-off artists and convey actual accountability again to authorities applications."

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U.S. Capitol at sundown. (Emma Woodhead/Fox Information Digital)

On Monday, a bunch of 98 Minnesota mayors raised issues with state leaders and Walz in a letter about their state's fiscal insurance policies, saying they've impacted their cities and residents, noting a disappearing $18 billion surplus and a projected $2.9 billion to $3 billion deficit for the 2028-29 biennium.

Former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab, who briefly labored on the Feeding Our Future facet of the fraud investigation, lately informed Fox Information Digital the fraud scheme was notable not just for its dimension, however for a way straightforward it was to hold out.

"Truthfully how straightforward this fraud was to do," Teirab mentioned. "These fraudsters have been simply saying that they have been spending all this cash on feeding children… they usually have been simply making up these PDFs, placing false names into Excel sheets."

Teirab mentioned oversight failures throughout the Minnesota Division of Schooling and different businesses performed a major function. He argued that officers had incentives to keep away from scrutiny, citing political sensitivities surrounding Minnesota’s Somali group.

"There have been big incentives to simply flip the opposite means," Teirab mentioned. "There’s a way of, ‘If we are saying one thing, are they going to name us racist?’ And that’s precisely what occurred."