If Fraud In Minnesota Looks Bad, Wait Till You See Gavin Newsom’s California

[mystery-ak]

If Fraud In Minnesota Looks Bad, Wait Till You See Gavin Newsom’s California
Chuck DeVore


As a former California state assemblyman who spent four years on the Budget Committee, I had a front-row seat to Sacramento’s obsession with “pulling down” federal dollars, turning welfare programs into a free-for-all.

Then-state Auditor Elaine Howle ran a lean operation, issuing spot-on reports about waste and vulnerabilities — and getting ignored time and again. California maximized payments for SNAP, Medi-Cal, and unemployment insurance with little regard for fraud controls.

That same reckless mindset has fueled scandals across blue states, with Minnesota serving as the appetizer to California’s main course of fiscal disaster.

Minnesota’s Feeding Our Future fraud — where crooks were convicted last March of pocketing $250-300 million in federal child nutrition funds by claiming phantom meals for kids — was a mere fraction of what was to come.

Today, Minnesota’s likely fraud toll has ballooned, with nearly $9 billion in suspected Medicaid scams since 2018, involving fake providers, ghost services, and out-of-state hustlers. Despite 80 charged, 50-plus guilty pleas, and assets like luxury cars forfeited in the Feeding Our Future scam, recoveries are a drop in the bucket. State agencies have ignored red flags, paralyzed by fears of discrimination lawsuits — or even just being labeled “racists.” And that allowed fraudsters to run wild.

But if Minnesota’s the starter, California’s the feast.

more
https://thefederalist.com/2026/01/13/if-fraud-in-minnesota-looks-bad-wait-till-you-see-gavin-newsoms-california/

[DefiantMassRINO]

The most liberal Blue States have the attitude that 'if it's free money from the Feds, it's not fraud'.

Blue Sanctuary State Liberals' reactions have been so intemperate because their value system does not have a notion of 'fraud'.  To say there is 'fraud' is to attack their entire belief system.

Because it's other people's money, it has no value to them, so, waste and defraud away.

This is why the Feds need to put more stringent controls on grants to states.  It would be better if the Feds made the states beg for their qualified, GAO-audited expenses to be re-imbursed for less than 100%. Make states, counties, and municipalities put some of their own skin in the game.

[DB]

Simply put, the more money that flows into a state from outside the state the more active the state's economy is.

It makes the state wealthier at others expense. Slick and crooked as hell. Grift at the state level.

[DefiantMassRINO]

... unless that money is sent to Somalia in suitcases.

Simply put, the more money that flows into a state from outside the state the more active the state's economy is.

It makes the state wealthier at others expense. Slick and crooked as hell. Grift at the state level.

[DB]

... unless that money is sent to Somalia in suitcases.

The subject on this one is California. For Minnesota there was plenty of money for the politicians and grifters to buy nice things still making the state wealthier.