2026 – A Year for the Voters

 

The massive welfare fraud that has been perpetrated on the American people in Minnesota is not the biggest crime that has been revealed by its unraveling.  Congress doles out the money collected from hard working American taxpayers without even the most basic oversight checks in place to assure desired purposes are achieved and fraud is thwarted. As details of the Minnesota fraud continue to emerge we are learning how easy it was to defraud the American people of billions.  We would be fools to think this is an isolated incident in one state and, unless proven otherwise, it is reasonable to assume that some of those who are responsible for oversight are involved in the fraud. The indefensible dereliction of duty by Congress would never have been exposed without the election of Donald Trump, a disruptor.  His disregard for revered institutions and “the way things are done” in Washington is blowing things wide open on many fronts at the behest of the voters who elected him.

 

The Federal Government collects $4.9 trillion from the American people every year. Most of it comes in the form of taxes with nearly half (49%) as individual income tax.  Payroll tax (Social Security and Medicare) makes up another 35% and corporate income tax about 11%.

 

According to the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), an organization that does research for practical policy solutions and provides educational resources to Federal policy makers, welfare comprises 20% of annual Federal spending and is one of the largest categories in the Federal budget.  In 2019, a year for which EPIC provided data, the Federal government spent $955 billion on 83 programs for low-income people. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we can assume that welfare spending, and all government spending, is rife with fraud. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative uncovered mountains of waste, fraud and abuse before hitting the brick wall erected by career politicians and deep state actors who like things just the way they are.

 

What We Know About the Minnesota Fraud

 

The Biden administration flooded the country with “relief” funding of all sorts during the COVID pandemic.  It has been known for several years that large scale theft occurred from child nutrition, housing, child care, and autism programs in Minnesota during COVID-19, but it was largely suppressed by the national media and kept out of view of the public at large.

 

Prosecutions for the fraud have been in process since 2022 and continued into 2025.  Nearly 100 have been charged with the crimes and most have already been convicted.  Most are members of the Somali population in Minnesota and, pulling right from the liberal playbook, Governor Tim Walz called Trump’s criticism of the Somali criminals “vile, racist lies and slander toward our fellow Minnesotans”.  There is nothing racist about reacting with anger to the sting of immigrants who were welcomed here to build a better life for themselves defrauding those who welcomed them.  Walz dropped his reelection bid last week amid the growing scandal.  It remains to be seen how deeply he is entangled in the fraud.  It’s chilling to think if the Democrats had prevailed, he would be the Vice President.

 

It took the aggressive journalism of a YouTube videographer by the name of Nick Shirley to blow the scheme wide open when he went to a number of fake child care centers under the guise of wanting to enroll his child.  It was immediately obvious these were shell entities with no children enrolled. The childcare fraudsters have received more than $6 million in Federal funding. Once Shirley’s video hit social media, the fraud could no longer be suppressed. CBS broke its silence with a “news review” reporting that the defendants spent the money on cars, property, and luxury travel and wired millions to overseas accounts.  CNN was forced to cover the story but could not resist adding that there are those who say this is just another attempt of the Trump administration to cast a bad light on Somali immigrants.

 

In Minnesota, fake not-for-profit organizations were created and falsified invoices for enrollments, meal counts, or whatever services were supposed to be provided were used to bilk the Government.  It is projected that the fraud may top $9 billion.  Federal prosecutors are describing it as “industrial scale fraud”.

 

Wisconsin Has Its Own Problems

 

Last fall when the Democrats forced a government shutdown, Americans were shocked to learn that nearly 42 million people (more than 12% of the population) receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to help pay for their food every month.  The number of people receiving assistance has more than doubled since 2000. 

 

This program is administered by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) which provides more than $100 billion to the states for direct food assistance and the administrative costs of running the program.  

 

The spotlight the shutdown shined on SNAP prompted the Trump administration to undertake an audit of the program for fraud and abuse.  In Wisconsin, the SNAP program is called Food Share.  It has about 700,000 enrollees and it receives $1.5 billion in Federal funding.  

 

The USDA requested information about program recipients from Wisconsin and was refused by Governor Evers who argued the request for sensitive data is an attempt to cut the program and a violation of privacy of the enrollees.  Attorney General Josh Kaul joined multiple states in a lawsuit to block the Government’s data collection. In an interview, asked why he would not share Wisconsin’s data with the Federal program administrator Evers responded that the data is analyzed every year and “we feel confident in it.”

 

Rather than the strong pressure that should have been exerted by Robin Vos, Assembly Speaker, Devin LeMahieu, Senate Leader, and other elected Republicans on the Evers administration to cooperate with the audit and verify for the people of Wisconsin that proper checks are in place, we heard nothing…until last Sunday when an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel carried a glowing report of the cooperation between the Republicans and Governor Evers, who are working to comply with changes the Big Beautiful Bill is making to the SNAP program. Their focus is on protecting Wisconsin’s Federal funding. Instead of focusing on why Welfare has become a way of life for so many Wisconsin residents and developing a plan to move them to self-sufficiency, Tony Evers has proposed $70 million to create new positions at the state level to make sure food assistance payments are accurate and avoid penalties being imposed by the Federal government if they are not. Robin Vos appears to be very pleased with the plan.

 

Last December, the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) refused a second demand from the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the state’s full Voter Registration List.  The DOJ’s purpose is to assess states’ voter registration lists for proper maintenance and compliance with Federal law. We know with more than 8.2 million names on the Wisconsin Voter Registration List, and more than 4 million of them ineligible to vote, the List is not properly maintained. The WEC’s excuses to the DOJ were Wisconsin law explicitly prevents the Commission from sharing the personal information of voters and Wisconsin law requires a fee of $12,500 to share the Voter Registration List.

 

Wisconsin lawmakers obviously never intended the laws protecting the information of Wisconsin voters to interfere with legitimate audits of regulatory compliance.  The aggressive action we should have expected from Vos, LeMahieu, and the rest of the elected Republicans, demanding cooperation with the Federal audit and figuring out how to get it, never materialized.

 

Verifiability is Not Just About Elections

 

The connections among these seemingly unrelated occurrences are too important to miss.  Elected officials in Congress and all across our state spout hollow platitudes about the importance of transparent government, but strenuously resist efforts to make our election results and how our money is spent verifiable to the people.

 

The year since Donald Trump’s election has exposed that government performance has degenerated to a level even lower than we realized. Unchecked corruption and incompetence are impeding good government. Career politicians have replaced citizen legislators and the media is corrupt. Many changes will be required to restore a government that is worthy of the freest people in the greatest country in the world.  Our vote is the most powerful tool we have to exert our collective will and the Minnesota fraud has reinforced that when money and power are on the line, there are always people who will cheat if they can. Our ability to verify that election results accurately reflect the will of the people must be the solid foundation for every other change we will undertake. Our unrelenting insistence on verifiable elections, in which every vote cast can be tied to an eligible voter, is the most important first step on the long road ahead.  Intent on taking our country back state by state, and fueled by the wrath of people who will not settle, we can and must make 2026 a year for the voters.