GOP lawmaker unveils WALZ Act after losing billions in Minnesota fraud scam

First on Fox: A Republican lawmaker has responded to a massive disclosure fraud scandal in Minnesota with legislation to prevent more taxpayer dollars from being wasted at the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Republican Representative Marianette Miller-Meeks has introduced the Welfare Abuse and Laundering of Billions Act, or the “WALZ Act,” which would require HHS’s Office of Inspector General to open an investigation into any program that sees a 10% or greater increase in total payments in any six-month period within any fiscal year.

Under the bill, HHS would not have the discretion to ignore sudden billing increases that critics often indicate are fraudulent schemes, especially in large entitlement programs.

The bill comes amid revelations in recent months that up to $9 billion in fraud has been committed in Minnesota’s federally funded health and nutrition programs. federal prosecutors said last week.

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Critics have made Walz the face of scandal, given the fact that concerns about fraud in 2019, when he took office, and the inability of the state, which he serves as top executive, to address the problem over the past five years.

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“It’s under my watch,” Walz told reporters Friday. “I’m responsible for it. And most importantly, I’m the one who will fix it.”

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Miller-Meeks told Fox News Digital that Minnesota’s situation represents a “coercive failure of leadership.”

“This is what happens when soft-on-crime Democrats run the show: zero accountability, zero oversight and taxpayers left holding the bag,” the Iowa Republican continued. “The Walz Act is named for a reason, this level of negligence cannot be replicated anywhere else in America. This bill puts strong safeguards in place to protect taxpayer dollars, close the door on scam artists and bring real accountability to government programs.”

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On Monday, a group of 98 Minnesota mayors expressed concerns in a letter to state leaders and Walz about their state’s fiscal policies, saying they have impacted their cities and residents, with an $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 worked on the Feeding Our Future side of the fraud investigation, recently told Fox News Digital that the fraud scheme was notable not only for its size, but also for how easy it was to execute.

“Honestly that’s how easy it was to cheat,” Terab said. “These fraudsters were just saying they’re spending all this money on feeding kids … and they were just making these PDFs, putting fake names on Excel sheets.”

Terab said oversight failures within the Minnesota Department of Education and other agencies played a significant role. He argued that officials encouraged him to avoid scrutiny, citing political sensitivities surrounding Minnesota’s Somali community.

“There was just a huge incentive to turn the other way,” Teirab said. “There’s a sense of, ‘If we say something, are they going to call us racist?’ And that’s exactly what happened.”

Fox News Digital’s Nicholas Lanham and Luis Casiano contributed to this report

Original article source: GOP lawmaker unveils WALZ Act after losing billions in Minnesota fraud scam