That’s according to the outgoing U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, Andy Luger. And he should know.
Luger, a Biden appointee, announced that he will step down next month and sat down with KSTP-TV’s Jay Kolls for an exit interview. KSTP points out that Luger’s office has prosecuted 70 individuals over the past two years in the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal. Luger tells KSTP,
“I think there needs to be a lot more done, and people need to have serious conversations and getting to the root of this and stopping it before it happens,” Luger said. “I just see it and no other state had a Feeding Our Future. We did. No other states have had the kinds of problems we’ve had with government fraud, but other states have problems we don’t have.”
He’s correct. As I’ve been documenting in my ScandalTracker 2024TM just about any state government social service program that pays out taxpayer money to private companies (nonprofit or for-profit) has a problem with industrial-scale fraud.
Why is that? The state’s Legislative Auditor, Judy Randall, explained last summer,
The state agencies don’t necessarily approach their work with an oversight and regulatory mindset… We haven’t seen evidence of the skillset that is needed — not trusting people.
Too often, state bureaucrats see their job as “helping people” by helping the helpers, the companies and nonprofits that provide services to low-income families. Taking the time to perform due diligence, oversight, or investigation of the middlemen is seen as delaying the help that ultimate recipients so desperately need.
But the “compassion” and “empathy” exhibited by the state’s bureaucrats and politicians has backfired. Support for these social service programs is plummeting among taxpayers and voters. Our exclusive Thinking Minnesota polling shows that voters believe that more than one-third (34 percent) of all state spending is wasted by state government.
My colleague Bill Walsh thinks that one useful step would be to empower the already existing, elected office of State Auditor to go after waste and fraud in state government.
Most voters already think that the State Auditor already does that. But unlike the appointed Legislative Auditor, and despite the name, the State Auditor’s domain is confined to auditing local government.
Let’s broaden the powers of the State Auditor and invite Minnesota voters to elect a real watchdog to the post in 2026. A true “state” auditor–independent, separately elected–would be empowered to go after fraud without fear or favor.