Fraud in the Gopher State isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s just been ignored or dismissed for years.

Back when Minnesota Governor Tim Walz pranced onto the national stage as Kamala Harris’s vice presidential pick, astute political observers could hardly believe it. Now, just a few short months later, Walz’s bumbling and haplessness have finally culminated in his political demise.

On Monday, Walz announced that he was no longer seeking a third term as governor. “As I reflected on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays,” he asserted in his official statement, “I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all. Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences. So I’ve decided to step out of the race and let others worry about the election while I focus on the work.”

Walz is happy to blame the Republicans, those “cynics who prey on our political differences,” as opposed to taking responsibility for his own bad leadership that left his state wide open for fraud. Instead, he self-righteously seemed to claim that he himself was instrumental in uncovering the fraud, all while yelling at independent journalist Nick Shirley, who actually did the legwork to uncover the Somali daycare fraud.

Most political pundits surmise that Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar will take up the mantle. Klobuchar, one of her party’s umpteen presidential candidates in 2020, is the Democrats’ strongest candidate to replace Walz.

While Walz refuses to take responsibility beyond admitting that the buck stops with him, the Democrat Party has decided to cauterize the massive wound (at last count, the fraud was estimated to be $18+ billion) by offering Walz as the sacrificial lamb.

What truly represents a sacrifice, though, would be Walz’s immediate resignation. In the real world, when CEOs mess up this badly, they lose their jobs. But in politics, you can keep your job and tell off anyone who complains.

Amid growing calls from Minnesota state lawmakers for him to resign, Walz hit back, saying, “You can make all your requests for me to resign — over my dead body will that happen.”

Walz then did his normal dog and pony show of blaming Donald Trump and the Republicans with his next rant: “I will fight this thing ‘til the very end to make this state better. And the question I think they need to decide is, when is the guy in the White House going to resign? When does he take accountability for what he did? Because it isn’t going to happen here in terms of us shying away from making the state better.”

The fraud in Minnesota has nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with Walz, who either allowed it to happen by apathy or actively participated in it. Taxpayer dollars — monies that you and I worked hard for — were stolen under his watch. Yet it’s Trump’s fault? Trump doesn’t run Minnesota.

It’s astonishing to think that had things gone differently last November, this man would be in the White House right now alongside Kamala Harris. We sure dodged a bullet on that one.

As far as fraud goes, more heads need to roll. Walz should take the fall because the buck fully stops with him, but others in his administration enabled the fraud as well.

Additionally, Minnesota is just the tip of the iceberg. What about California, Illinois, or New York? How much have these blue states drained from the American people’s pocketbook with their feckless mismanagement?

Hopefully, this fraud exposé in the Land of 10,000 Daycares will spur others into action. As for Tim Walz, the exit is stage left.