If you’ve driven anywhere in Minnesota this fall, you’ve seen them. Save our state. End fraud. Cut taxes. Vote Republican. They’re Republican signs, paid for by local party units and candidates raising money for them.
Let’s start where we agree: the fraud was real, and nobody likes paying more in taxes than they have to. If one party had a clear record of fixing both, I’d put that sign in my own yard.
So let’s look at why voting Republican all the way down the ballot won’t do what the sign says, here or in Washington.
In Minnesota, the record decides
Feeding Our Future alone took $242 million meant to feed kids, and its ringleader got more than 41 years in prison.
Sure, this happened under a Democratic governor, and that’s a fair reason to be angry. But fixing it hasn’t been a party fight here. Minnesota’s new independent Office of Inspector General passed the House 127-5 and is now law. Republicans pushed it, and Democrats voted for it. If your Republican legislator helped fix fraud, they may deserve your vote.
In Washington, the party decides
First, some scale. Fraud isn’t just a Minnesota problem or a Democratic one. The Government Accountability Office estimates the federal government loses $233 billion to $521 billion a year to fraud, under presidents of both parties.
Stopping that takes prosecutors and watchdogs. Instead, the Republican administration has:
- Pardoned people convicted of fraud and other crimes, erasing nearly $1.7 billion they owed, by House Judiciary Democrats’ count
- Fired about 17 inspectors general, the watchdogs who catch fraud
- Cut the Justice Department’s anti-corruption unit from about 35 lawyers to four or five
Waste happens under Republicans too, and close to home. In August, Homeland Security paid $495.6 million for the empty prison in Appleton. Last year, its owner offered it to Minnesota for $75 million, and this year the county assessed it at $14.75 million. Maybe there’s a good reason to pay almost seven times that offer. Asking that question is Congress’s job.
Last year, Senate Republicans sided with Trump 96% of the time on votes where he took a position. They blocked Democrats’ measures on the Qatari jet and foreign payments. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump, lost his primary.
That isn’t a Republican flaw. Whichever party holds power, its own members rarely investigate it. A new senator can mean every word about fraud, but their first vote is for a majority leader, and the majority decides what gets investigated.
And “cut taxes”? The president’s tariffs are a tax increase averaging $820 per household this year, and the Republican majorities in Congress have left the current ones in place.
The governor and attorney general do both
They run Minnesota’s fraud fight. They’re also Minnesota’s check on Washington. When a federal decision hurts the state, the governor can push back and the attorney general can take it to court, whether it’s withheld Medicaid money or a federal rule that oversteps. That job isn’t partisan. Republican attorneys general filed more than 100 lawsuits against the Biden administration, by their own association’s count. So ask two things: what’s their fraud plan, and will they protect Minnesota from Washington no matter who’s president?
So does the sign add up?
Not for Congress. A Republican vote for Congress won’t fix fraud in Minnesota.
If ending fraud is what you care about, look for candidates who’ll chase it no matter which party it’s in. Look up how your legislator voted on the inspector general bill (the Legislature posts roll calls), and ask VoteMate whether your congressional candidates would investigate fraud and corruption, even in their own party.