Ronald Reagan — aka Ronaldus Magnus (PBUH) — liked to say that “The nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth is a government program.”
Did the program work? It needs more money.
Did it fail? It needs way more money.
Just chugging along? Better throw more money at it, just in case.
And don’t forget the rules and regulations that have collected like barnacles over the years since the government program was launched. The 21st Amendment ended Prohibition — thank goodness — but its legacy of federal and state government taxation and regulatory overreach is still with us, almost a century after repeal.
But if you’d like to smile at a stunning counterexample, let me take you now to that bastion of Jeffersonian small-government common sense. I speak now, of course, of Minnesota.
I’ll pause here a moment while you recover your jaw from the floor.
Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services (HHS), signed into law by then-Gov. Mark Dayton (Fricken Commie Labor-Dem) in 2017, came into effect in 2020 under Gov. Tim “Jazz Hands” Walz (Fricken Commie Labor-Dem). The three-year implementation wait was due to the need for federal approval “via a state plan amendment under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services,” as my paid LLM research assistant put it.
Stick a pin in that part about federal funding. It becomes important in just a few short paragraphs.
Anyway, HSS was one of those innocuous-sounding and ostensibly well-meaning programs purportedly meant to, as the Minnesota Prairie County Alliance put it, “help people with disabilities, including mental illness and substance use disorder, and seniors find and keep housing.”
But before we get to the juicy meat of the story, also tuck away in the back of your brain that I felt the names “innocuous-sounding,” “ostensibly well-meaning,” and “purportedly” before even getting to the substance of the program.
“KARE 11 Investigates began publishing reports on Housing Stabilization Services last spring,” the local station reported Monday, “ultimately uncovering widespread fraud that included questionable billing, bribes, falsifying of records, and even billing for dead clients.”
“Internal emails, fraud referrals, and county investigative reports obtained by KARE 11 now reveal a pattern of ignored alarms that left vulnerable Minnesotans waiting for help that never came while the state’s costs skyrocketed.”
CBS News has the shocking numbers: “When HSS launched in 2020, the estimated cost was about $2.5 million a year. But by 2024, it ballooned to over $100 million.” This year’s projected cost: $125 million.
Number of needy people actually provided with housing: [Shrug Emoji].
This guy is a handful of confetti away from Rip Taylor. https://t.co/Fxfz8wjwFa
— Stephen Green (@VodkaPundit) March 19, 2025
The state that threw untold millions of education dollars at Somali-run “Learing Centers” also saw a greater than 40-fold increase in Medicare money at a housing program that “led to several criminal indictments of accused fraudsters, including two Philadelphia men who pleaded guilty to starting businesses in the state and enrolling in the program because it seemed like a ‘good opportunity to make money.'”
Well, you could knock me over with a wrecking ball. But it had better be a big one.
But I can also hear you say, “C’mon, Steve — this is just another case of multimillion-dollar fraud in Tim Walz’s Minnesota. Compared to last year’s news about the Somali fraud, this is weak sauce.”
And I absolutely agree. I wouldn’t have bothered writing about mere millions in fraud somehow going unnoticed by Walz, unless there was some big hook.
Here it is, again, courtesy of KARE 11: “Minnesota House unanimously passes bill to remove Housing Stabilization Services from state statute.” Similar legislation is moving forward in the state senate, and Walz is expected to sign it.
They’re killing a government program.
It’s probably safe to assume that the real motivation is to forestall any investigation into who got what out of all those defrauded millions.
Keep digging, KARE 11.
Recommended: What Happens When There’s Not Enough Regime Left to Change?
