Ruy Teixeira hopes fellow Democrats learn a lesson from the Minnesota welfare fraud scandal.
The specter of welfare fraud haunts the Democrats once again. Concerns about abuse of generous government programs helped power the rise of Reagan-era conservatism in the 1970s and ’80s. Could the criminal abuse of hundreds of millions of dollars in welfare costs in Minnesota, which has brought down the state’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, be leveraged to similar broad political effect today?
Recall that Democrats’ standard approach to warnings about welfare fraud during the rise of Ronald Reagan was to minimize the problem and characterize the issue as exaggerated and racially charged. Democrats had fallen into a trap: They responded to a serious issue by standing by their ideological priors to placate their base.
Until Bill Clinton and his invocation of Americans who “work hard and play by the rules” finally allowed the Democrats to escape from the Republicans’ fraud trap, the Democrats spent years in the political wilderness.
Early signs suggest the Democrats are embarking on a similar trajectory.
Before announcing that he would no longer seek re-election, Mr. Walz admitted that some fraud happened on his watch but deflected, saying that Republicans are appealing to racism and xenophobia.
Mr. Walz’s departure indicates this is no more effective than Democrats’ response to welfare fraud accusations in the Reagan era. Americans detest people getting something for nothing — the very essence of fraud. As the party that typically wants more and more generous social programs, Democrats have a special responsibility to ensure that these programs are clean as a whistle and reward only those who “work hard and play by the rules.”
Democrats are also the party that positions itself as the friend of immigrants and immigration. As such, they have a special responsibility to ensure that those admitted to the country assimilate, follow the rules and contribute — rather than take — from the community.
