Taking the good with the bad

Applying the DOGE lens to the state budget.

Which do you want first, the good news or the bad news about the state budget? How about the bad news: We have a spending problem in Minnesota. The legislature and Gov. Tim Walz used leftover cash from the 2023 surplus to paper over the difference, but the fact remains — we will spend $66.4 billion over the next two years, but only take in $64.4 billion in revenue, a $2 billion difference. And it will get worse.

The good news is that Minnesotans understand this and are willing to make the cuts necessary to balance the state budget. That’s what we learned in our latest Thinking Minnesota Poll. We walked respondents through a series of proposals that could have been made by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) if his team focused on the Minnesota budget. The results should give lawmakers confidence that if they ever find the courage to slow the growth in state spending to match revenue, the public will stand behind them with strong support.

The poll was conducted for American Experiment by Meeting Street Insights, a nationally recognized polling operation based in Charleston, S.C. Using a mix of cellular and landline phones, the company interviewed 500 registered voters across Minnesota on May 28, 29, and 31, 2025. The margin of error is +-4.38 percent.

Beginning with overall state government spending, we asked Minnesotans if they think the state spent too much, not enough, or about the right amount. We first asked this question in 2018, and 36 percent said the state government spends too much. Today, that number jumped to 48 percent, a 12 percent increase. Minnesotans are waking up to the government’s spending problem.

Next, we asked respondents to estimate the percentage of state spending they believe is wasteful. We’ve asked this question many times over the years and found it jumped to 33.6 percent in 2023 after the Feeding Our Future story broke. The number held steady at 33 percent in the current poll. Imagine that: Minnesotans believe one-third of the state budget is wasted.

To make it more personal, we asked Minnesotans how much fraud and waste is acceptable as a percentage of their paycheck. Seventy-eight percent said less than 5 percent of their paycheck would be the acceptable amount of fraud and waste in state government. Sixty-one percent said zero. That’s a big gap between what Minnesotans believe is happening and what they will tolerate.

More good news: Real progress was made in the 2025 legislature to rein in fraud and stop wasteful spending. The House created a new Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee to identify fraud in state government. One of their recommendations was to establish an independent office with investigative powers to uncover fraud. According to our poll, 72 percent of respondents support creating an Office of Inspector General, while only 24 percent oppose it. The bill passed the Senate during the regular session with strong bipartisan support but failed in the House when Democrats refused to support it on the last day of session.

With fraud in Minnesota government reaching more than $611 million over the last five years (according to American Experiment’s fraud tracker), the creation of an independent Office of Inspector General is long overdue. The strong support in our poll indicates that the public has lost faith in the current system and is ready for real solutions.

Direct funding of nonprofits by politicians has become another source of fraud and waste in state government and deserves the scrutiny of a Department of Government Efficiency. The most famous instance, of course, is the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal.

According to the latest Thinking Minnesota Poll, 80 percent of respondents support requiring all grants to nonprofits to go through a competitive process with more oversight and accountability. Duh!

Over $1 billion was allocated to nonprofits like Feeding Our Future in the last state budget. If at least 25 percent of that money is either wasted or flat-out stolen, enacting these proposals would save $250 million over the next two years.

One final point regarding fraud: We asked poll respondents if they thought the 2025 legislature did enough on this topic, and the answer was a resounding “No.” Sixty-four percent believe the legislature has not done enough to strengthen efforts to prevent fraud in state government.

Now for the cuts. A great place to start reducing government waste is in a topic Elon Musk tackled in his national DOGE effort: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, or DEI. American Experiment identified 312 people working in DEI jobs at Minnesota’s state agencies and public colleges and universities.

But not everyone in Minnesota is on board with cutting DEI employees. Only forty-three percent of respondents support closing state government DEI offices and reassigning state employees working on those initiatives, with 54 percent opposed.

The news is better when it comes to the overall state workforce. Fifty-three percent of Minnesotans support an effort to reduce the size of the state government workforce.

Most of the state workforce is employed in two areas of the budget: human services and education. Together, they represent over 70 percent of the general fund budget, so if you want to cut spending, you must cut here.

State spending in K-12 education is mostly about sending money to local school districts based on their student populations. Student numbers fluctuate based on demographics and have grown slowly since 2003 at around 3 percent. Teacher growth has roughly matched student growth at nine percent. But for all the wrong reasons, local school districts have grown their principal and other administrative staff by 28 percent and 285 percent, respectively!

Slowing the growth of school administrators and principals to match that of teacher/student growth would save millions of dollars and is very popular with Minnesotans. Sixty-four percent of Minnesotans believe we should require school districts to limit the growth of administrative staff to the growth of the student population.

Saving the biggest for last, human services is where you will find the best opportunities for spending cuts and the most consensus from Minnesotans. Minnesota leads the country in overall welfare spending per person in poverty. We are number two in the nation in Medicaid spending per person (Medicaid is healthcare for the poor, disabled, and elderly). We are very generous, and Minnesotans know it. Fifty-three percent agreed with the very true statement that Minnesota spends more on Medicaid than other states. They also told us that welfare is the most likely program to contain waste and fraud in state government, followed closely by state government nonprofits.

Next, we asked about several policy and budget changes in the area of human services that the state can make to help bring the budget into balance. Making these changes is not about kicking people off welfare or taking away their healthcare. It’s about making sure the system is fair, and resources are going only to those who deserve our help, not to fund waste, fraud, and abuse.

These policy changes are very popular with Minnesotans, as our polling shows. Eighty-nine percent support a requirement that all Minnesota Medicaid recipients live in Minnesota in order to receive benefits. Seventy-five percent support requiring all Minnesota Medicaid recipients to have their eligibility reviewed annually. Fifty-eight percent support a requirement that nearly all adults be working or looking for work to have health insurance through Medicaid.

Lastly, a strong majority of Minnesotans oppose giving free healthcare to illegal immigrants. Sixty-one percent of poll respondents oppose having the state pay for healthcare for illegal immigrants, while 37 percent support continuing the payments. Legislative leaders and Walz agreed during the 2025 special session to end free healthcare for adults who are in the country illegally.

Partisanship explains how the number opposing free healthcare could be so low. Republicans oppose free healthcare for illegals 93 percent to 6 percent, while Independents oppose it 65 percent to 33 percent. The overwhelming majority of those who support free healthcare for illegals identify as Democrats, who support the funding 65 percent to 31 percent.

The overall strong opposition should end the discussion on this topic and move us one step closer to resolving the state budget.

By applying a DOGE lens to the Minnesota state budget, Minnesota’s Think Tank proved that aligning spending and revenue is not only possible, it’s supported by the people paying the taxes: you!