A press release from the office of state Rep. Laura Brod, R-New Prague:

When the 2009 legislature convenes in January, our state will face a significant budget deficit that could approach $2 billion. Taking $2 billion from Minnesotans by raising taxes is not an option when our economy is already struggling. Minnesotans are feeling enough financial pressure from rising gas prices, rising gas taxes and inflation at the grocery store that they don't need government asking them to continue to foot the bill for a spending appetite that seems insatiable.

Instead of casting our eyes on your wallet, legislators should cast our eyes on the $34.5 billion our state government already spends, looking for waste, fraud and unnecessary spending that can be redirected at core priorities. Ensuring that every dollar spent by the State of Minnesota is used effectively and properly certainly ought to be our priority concern.

With this in mind, I recently joined several legislators in requesting that our nonpartisan Legislative Auditor conduct an investigation into the state's welfare system after it was revealed that more than 300,000 transactions involving Minnesota welfare benefits took place outside our borders in the last 12 months.

The numbers speak for themselves: 309,717 welfare transactions spread across 49 states in the last year for a total of more than $10.2 million. As you might expect, the highest amounts are spent in neighboring states -- $2.2 million in North Dakota, $2.4 million in Wisconsin.

But high amounts of spending in other states should raise questions -- $1.3 million in Illinois, $392,787 in Michigan, $387,066 in Texas. Warm weather states like Arizona, Florida and California all total more than $110,000 each. In January of this year, 14 transactions took place in Alaska averaging $600 each. Even Hawaii has almost $3,000 worth of welfare spending by Minnesotans.

To be clear, spending outside the state is legal, but it certainly should raise serious questions about the way our money is being spent.

Our welfare system in Minnesota is historically generous. It is intended to help people who cannot help themselves or to provide temporary assistance to people and families trying to escape poverty. There is no doubt that we all, regardless of political party preference, want to make sure help is available for those who need it most. However, potential abuse or misuse of the welfare system is significant and deserves questioning because every dollar that is used improperly is not available to help those who really need it.

Our tax dollars are too valuable to waste. If there is fraud and abuse taking place, we need to find it and eliminate it. We need to introduce and implement more oversight and accountability. It seems as though the legislature continually asks citizens to work harder for government through increased costs and higher taxes rather than reforming government to work better on behalf of taxpayers.

With a mammoth $2 billion budget deficit looming, the state should be evaluating its spending and looking to pull waste out of the system because Minnesota families simply cannot afford to pay more of their family budget in taxes.

Representative Laura Brod (R-New Prague) is the lead Republican on the Health and Human Service Policy Committee at the Minnesota House of Representatives