POLITICS: JD Vance, hunting vice in California

How many “Learing Center” equivalents and other galling fraud schemes exist in California? 

And: How do we shut them down and hold them accountable?

Take heart, dear and beleaguered taxpayers: JD Vance on the case.

The Trump administration announced this week that the vice president would help lead a task force targeting fraud in the Golden State. 

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order naming Vance the task force chairman, according to reports.

The move is part of a national crackdown on fraud following widespread outrage over the theft of money intended to feed and provide daycare for needy children in Minnesota.

Vance’s role as de facto fraud czar for California sends a message.

Not only does it demonstrate how seriously the Trump administration takes fraud in a state with little anti-fraud oversight under permissive state and local governments.

But it also shows the prospective scope of fraud here.

A U.S. vice president does not spend time rooting out penny-ante crime.

Already, the VP has pointed to $7 billion in fraud in California’s federal welfare programs — calling the racket “much worse” than the grift in Minnesota.

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In one example, the head of LA nonprofit Abundant Blessings (abundant for whom?) faces 37 years in prison on charges of fraudulently obtaining $23 million in homeless services funding.

Alexander Soofer stands accused of diverting the cash to luxuries such as a $7 million Westwood mansion, $125,000 Range Rover, and a stay at the posh Four Seasons Resort Maui.

In another case, housing executives Cody Holmes and Steven Taylor face charges of stealing millions from homeless housing programs. 

Meanwhile, California’s streets remain strewn with homeless people. 

The administration says it’s found extensive health care fraud in California, as well — including the widespread bilking of taxpayers by illegal hospice facilities, often run by foreign nationals.

All this grift is doubly galling in that taxpayers need the money for legitimate programs at a time when state and federal budgets bleed red ink.

Bill Essayli, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, also has done yeoman’s work fighting fraud.

In blasting state officials for what he called indifference to the matter, Essayli said last month: “They will feign shock and horror (at fraud) but continue to push the money out the door. They care about spending money — they don’t care about accounting for money.”

That’s exactly right.

So it’s good that the feds, led by the vice president himself, are stepping in to stop the looting.

Taxpayers deserve accountability — and a reckoning.