GOP Lawmaker Introduces WALZ Act Following Minnesota Fraud Scandal Costing Billions

In response to a massive fraud scandal in Minnesota that could total up to $9 billion, Republican Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has introduced new legislation aimed at preventing similar fraud in federal health programs across the country.

The Welfare Abuse and Laundering Zillions Act, pointedly nicknamed the “WALZ Act,” would require the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General to automatically open investigations into any HHS program experiencing a 10% or greater increase in total payments over any six-month period within a fiscal year.

The legislation would remove discretionary powers that currently allow federal officials to overlook sudden spikes in billing that often signal fraudulent activity, particularly in large entitlement programs. Miller-Meeks described the situation in Minnesota as a “jaw-dropping failure of leadership” that demonstrates what happens “when soft-on-crime Democrats run the show.”

“This bill puts hard safeguards in place to protect taxpayer dollars, shut the door on scam artists, and bring real accountability back to government programs,” the Iowa Republican told Fox News Digital.

The bill comes in direct response to the unfolding scandal in Minnesota, where federal prosecutors recently revealed that federally funded health and nutrition programs in the state were exploited for potentially up to $9 billion. Critics have focused on Governor Tim Walz’s administration, noting that concerns about the fraud date back to 2019 when he took office.

Walz has publicly accepted responsibility for the failures. “This is on my watch,” he told reporters on Friday. “I am accountable for this. And more importantly, I am the one that will fix it.”

The fraud primarily centered on nutrition programs, including the notorious Feeding Our Future scheme, and reportedly extended to other areas such as autism therapy services. Former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab, who briefly worked on investigating the Feeding Our Future case, expressed shock at how easily the fraud was perpetrated.

“These fraudsters were just saying that they were spending all this money on feeding kids… and they were just making up these PDFs, putting false names into Excel sheets,” Teirab explained. He pointed to significant oversight failures within state agencies, including the Minnesota Department of Education.

Teirab suggested that political sensitivities may have contributed to the lack of oversight, particularly regarding Minnesota’s Somali community. “There were huge incentives to just turn the other way,” he said. “There’s a sense of, ‘If we say something, are they going to call us racist?’ And that’s exactly what happened.”

The scandal’s fiscal impact extends beyond the fraud itself. On Monday, a coalition of 98 Minnesota mayors sent a letter to state leaders expressing alarm over deteriorating state finances, noting that an $18 billion surplus has disappeared, with projections now showing a $2.9 billion to $3 billion deficit for the 2028-29 budget cycle.

The legislation proposed by Miller-Meeks represents one of the first federal responses to the Minnesota fraud case. If passed, it would create nationwide monitoring requirements designed to catch unusual increases in program spending before they balloon into billion-dollar scandals.

The situation in Minnesota highlights broader vulnerabilities in federal-state partnerships for administering benefit programs. While federal dollars fund many of these initiatives, oversight responsibilities are often shared between different levels of government, creating potential accountability gaps.

The WALZ Act faces an uncertain path in Congress, but its introduction underscores how the Minnesota scandal is drawing national attention and potentially reshaping discussions about accountability in government benefit programs across the country.