We are talking turkey this time of year, but it’s the plumped up kind in the form of government waste that’s our focus of the latest episode of Liz Collin Reports.
Bill Walsh, director of communications for the Center of the American Experiment, ran through the list of this year’s “Golden Turkey” nominees. The “award” dates back to 2020.
“The Golden Turkey is given to the silliest spending, the stupidest government spending. It can be a project, it can be a program, it can be state government, county government, city government,” Walsh explained.
Nominee #1: $18.5 million National Loon Center
Minnesota’s loon-atics are set to break ground this fall on an $18.5 million center devoted exclusively to the state bird.
“This is, by the way, funded from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, which Minnesotans just wholeheartedly endorsed again, sadly. It’s constitutionally-dedicated money,” Walsh said.
“I don’t think a loon center is a bad idea, but at $18.5 million, it’s going to be a multi-acre site. It’s on a lake in Cross Lake, Minnesota, prime real estate. There’s going to be docks and we are going to have a boardwalk and interpretive centers, just excess. What could we do with 18-and-a-half million dollars?” Walsh asked.
Nominee #2: 173 Walz administration DEI employees
Every year since the award’s inception, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz himself has received the most nominations.
“This is kind of a Tim Walz proxy vote, too, because every year for the five years we’ve had this project, we’ve opened up nominations to the public and Tim Walz gets the most nominations every year. We try to explain to people it’s not a person, it’s a project, but we’ve given up because they just want to nominate Tim Walz for the Golden Turkey Award. This is kind of a way to honor that. He has hired and embedded 175 or so employees in his state agencies that solely work in DEI,” Walsh explained.
“Don’t take our word for it. We asked them (state agencies) to tell us who works in DEI in their agencies and they very proudly shared that with us throughout state government. So, this is their number … I think it actually is a lot higher and we haven’t even got to higher ed yet or some of the other parts of government. What do these people do all day is our big question. What value do they add? They’re not plowing a street, they’re not answering a 911 call. They’re in government and taking up a salary and not adding any value. So, golden turkey all the way.”
Nominee #3: New state flag and seal
In 2023, the Minnesota Legislature passed a law establishing a commission to create new state symbols, allocating $35,000 for the design phase.
But the actual cost of replacing flags, uniforms, and signs now falls on state agencies and municipal governments, creating significant expenses across the state.
“The state flag and seal was the number-one nomination from the field as we opened it up for a few weeks to say, ‘Hey, what should be a golden turkey?’ and that far and away got the most nominations, after Tim Walz,” Walsh joked.
“The state flag is a bad idea policy wise, but also they’re spending a lot of money on it. The state has to spend money on it. Cities have to spend money on new patches, new badges for all the police, new flags for every courthouse, for every city hall and you couldn’t just kind of phase it in over time. That was kind of really the worst part of this law. They just demanded by Jan. 1, 2025, everyone’s got to be in the new state seal — state seal on all the patches, all the badges, everything’s got to be converted immediately,” Walsh said.
Nominee #4: $10,000 for a Dungeons & Dragons podcast
“Low dollar but high outrage” is how the Center of the American Experiment described this nominee.
“Another source of dedicated funding goes to the Legacy Fund to fund the arts. The State Arts Board annually gives out these artist grants. They have millions of dollars that they have to give out. We get new money from sales tax every year, constitutionally dedicated. So we always can go back to this well for nominees. We’ve nominated from this fund before. This year, it’s a $10,000 reward to some guy to do a podcast, five or six podcast episodes in Duluth, about Dungeons & Dragons,” Walsh said.
“They just sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons on a podcast and actually build a live audience. To their credit, they’re fulfilling the grant requirements. I’ve seen it on YouTube. You can find it. But this is the sixth year that they’ve gotten funding. So they get funding every year, like 10 grand a year to do this podcast. And our sales tax money is paying for that. Meanwhile, we don’t have money for overtime for corrections officers in the prisons or education or anything else, but we’ve got money for these individual artist grants, a real golden turkey nominee.”
Voting for the Golden Turkey Award is open until Nov. 27. You can vote here.
Liz Collin
Liz Collin has been a truth-teller for 20 years as a multi-Emmy-Award-winning reporter and anchor. Liz is a Worthington, Minnesota native who lives in the suburbs with her husband, son and loyal lab.
