The January 7 issue of the Lewiston Tribune carried a front page article about freezing child care grants to Idaho children. Two Idaho lawmakers, Representative Josh Tanner and Senator Brian Lenney, made the request jointly to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.  Their request came after a “conservative social media influencer” alleged fraud in a child care program in Minnesota.  Tanner and Lenney did not provide any specifics on why Idaho’s program should be halted, they merely asserted that if Minnesota has problems then we must have problems too. 

So… one unproven allegation of fraud in a state 1400 miles away causes us to stop helping needy Idaho children? This seems like an over-reaction, but let’s do a quick back-of-the-envelope analysis since there are certainly children right here in Nez Perce County who need financial support:

First, how many kids in Idaho are receiving financial assistance? 

A quick Google search shows that 

For this exercise,the 136,000 kids getting school food aid seems like a reasonable estimate.

Next, how many cases of fraud are there?

 Idaho’s SNAP program has low error rates (under 3.5% of payments), with much of this attributed to unintentional errors rather than fraud, according to data cited by the Idaho Capital Sun in 2025.   (citation needed)

So, let’s estimate the real fraud rate at two percent. This means that 2,720 kids get food they don’t deserve. The other 133,280 legitimately need the help.

It’s been well-established that undernourished kids don’t learn well, and this can become a life long handicap. We certainly want to avoid this tragedy.

What’s being done about the problem?

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare has an ongoing program to ensure that eligibility requirements are met and that fraud and abuse are identified and mitigated. According to agency spokesperson AJ McWhorter, “The department is actively redirecting staff to scale up resources to continue to support these reviews and necessary actions, including provider termination when appropriate. Any bad actors will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

It sounds like the department is on top of the issue.

Our suggestion  

Rather than do a knee-jerk reaction – “since there might be fraud, we better stop all payments” – why not wait for the results of the investigation already underway by the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare?  Once the problem is well understood additional preventive measures can be put in place to deal with future cases. Any any guilty parties should be prosecuted.

The Results?  We prosecute the wrongdoers.  We save some money in the future.

But most importantly, the kids get fed. 

Instead, we have Lenney, apparently not restrained by facts or data, asserting on X that “Minnesota got torched BILLIONS in child care fraud.” There is little evidence to support his assertion. But there seems to be plenty of evidence that he cares little for Idaho’s needy children.

You may want to remember this in November, when it’s time to vote for Idaho legislators.

Here’s the original article, published by the Idaho Capital Sun:

https://idahocapitalsun.com/2026/01/06/idaho-lawmakers-ask-state-to-freeze-child-care-grants-program

Featured image by Bess Hamiti on pixabay.com.

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George Grenley is a retired electronics engineer. Originally from the great state of Michigan, George worked in Silicon Valley for over forty years, but managed to avoid getting rich. He is now retired to a quiet farm, just southeast of east of Lewiston proper, where he pursues woodworking and politics, in part via the nice folks at NPC Dems. The opinions he expresses are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Nez Perce County Democrats.

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