To the editor:

The ‘Hands Off’ demonstration on Saturday in New Ulm was not the grassroots organization that they try to portray. Indivisible has been funded by George Soros’s Open Society Foundation to the tune of $7.6 million. I would suggest that the real ‘Hands Off’ movement should be as follows:

Hands Off — trying to stop the attempt to root out waste and fraud in Medicaid in Minnesota. Under the leadership of Tim Walz there has been over $68 million in fraud.

Hands Off — our tax dollars involved in the Feeding Our Future fraud under the direction of the Minnesota Department of Education amounting to $250 million, also under Tim Walz’s tenure. All together there has been over $611 million in fraud here in Minnesota in the last 6 years.

Hands Off — our tax dollars being used to fund NGOs such as Second Harvest Heartland where it was revealed that the CEO of this organization was collecting a salary of $721,000 per year and others on the board were getting salaries more than $150,000. That CEO resigned once her salary became public. Lutheran Social Services (LSS), another NGO, gets 87% of its funding from the taxpayer. The CEO of this organization is paid $420,000 per year. In all, 10 LSS employees earned more than the governor. The median salary of full-time workers in Minnesota as of December 2024 was $65,788 with about 35% of Minnesota household incomes less than the median.

Hands Off — trying to stop the attempt to root out waste, fraud and abuse in Social Security. It appears that many of the people involved in the ‘Hands Off’ demonstrations across the country are most likely collecting Social Security.

Hands Off — our grandchildren. The service (interest paid) on this country’s debt this year is greater than the defense and Medicare budget. The $36 trillion national debt is going to affect their future long after we are gone.

Kim Sjogren

New Ulm