Tim Walz watched fraudsters steal up to $9 billion from programs meant to feed children – and did nothing for years.
Nine days after testifying under oath about that disaster, his brand-new paid leave program is already falling apart.
Now Minnesota employers are learning what happens when Tim Walz builds another billion-dollar entitlement with the same weak oversight he used to lose the last one.
Minnesota Paid Family Leave Fraud Warnings Come True Two Months In
Minnesota's paid family leave law took effect January 1. It lets workers take up to 20 weeks off per year with partial pay – funded by higher business taxes in a state that already carries the second-highest corporate income tax rate in the nation.
Republicans warned this was coming. They said it would be abused. They said the oversight was inadequate. They predicted it would drive businesses out of Minnesota.
Two months in, every single one of those predictions is coming true.
The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce – the state's largest non-partisan business advocacy group – has documented what's actually happening. Doctors are signing off on full 12-week leaves for patients who don't need them. Some workers are drawing more in benefits than they ever made on the job. Others are at music festivals while the state cuts them checks for being too sick to work.
State Sen. Mark Koran told Fox News Digital there will be "no real enforcement" because Walz's law removed employers from any oversight role. The program wasn't designed with accountability. It was designed to expand government.
Minnesota Employers Report 700 Percent Spike in Paid Leave Requests
The numbers are already breaking businesses.
State Sen. Michael Holmstrom told Fox News Digital that a major employer in his district has seen a 700% increase in paid leave usage since January 1. The company cannot find skilled workers to backfill those positions. The result is operating at reduced capacity and delivering lower service – and that's before the fraud starts in earnest.
Holmstrom put it simply: "Minnesota is not a business-friendly state. Employers were already offering this benefit and then the state got in between employers and their employees, which it has no business doing."
The program is enforced by a brand-new government agency – the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development – staffed by more than 400 full-time employees. That's the same model Walz used for every other program that got looted. Create a new bureaucracy, hire hundreds of government workers, remove private sector accountability, and wait.
Bill Glahn, a policy fellow at the Center of the American Experiment, called it before the program launched. He described it as the "next billion-dollar fraud" and outlined exactly how it would be exploited: fake employees, minimal contributions followed by maximum claims, multiple people claiming leave to care for the same relative, and workers cycling in and out to collect benefits for most of the year while technically employed.
Sen. Koran said the end result is clear: fewer jobs, lower pay, decreased benefits, and a continued business exodus from Minnesota.
Tim Walz Testified About the Minnesota Fraud Scandal Then Built the Same Program Again
Here is what makes this story different from just another government program going wrong.
Tim Walz just testified before the House Oversight Committee on March 4 – under oath – about how he allowed up to $9 billion in fraud to run unchecked across 14 of Minnesota's social service programs. House Oversight Chairman James Comer confronted him with documents showing his administration knew about fraud concerns as early as 2019, kept the money flowing anyway, and punished state employees who tried to stop it. The committee's own report is titled "The Cost of Doing Nothing: How Tim Walz and Keith Ellison Fueled Minnesota's Fraud Explosion."
Walz's defense: he didn't know the specific numbers. Autism services billing exploded from $24 million to $342 million in five years – and Walz told Rep. Byron Donalds he wasn't aware of that specifically. Housing assistance fraud drained more than $104 million – same answer. The Feeding Our Future scheme drained nearly $300 million from programs meant to feed children during a pandemic – and the FBI never told Walz to keep the money flowing, despite his claims to the contrary.
The man who built the oversight system that lost $9 billion just built a new program using the exact same blueprint – same weak verification, same state-run bureaucracy, same removal of private sector checks, same political incentive to keep money flowing and call anyone who raises alarms a racist.
Every Republican who warned about this was right. Every Democrat who voted for it owns what comes next.
Sources:
- Andrew Mark Miller, "Walz in the hot seat as critics' predictions on his controversial new law come true," Fox News, March 13, 2026.
- "Hearing Wrap Up: Minnesota Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison Lied About Knowledge of Fraud and Silenced Whistleblowers," House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, March 4, 2026.
- "Oversight Committee Releases Explosive Testimony Revealing Minnesota Fraud Cover-Up by Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison," House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, March 4, 2026.
- Amy Curtis, "Minnesota's Newest Social Welfare Program Is the Next Big Fraud Waiting to Happen," Townhall, December 4, 2025.
- Scott McClallen, "Minnesota Rolls Out Paid Leave as State Reels From Childcare Fraud Claims," Townhall, January 7, 2026.
