Emperor's amnesty also made illegals eligible for two of the most fraud-riddled government programs

Obama's unilateral decree giving amnesty to over 5 million illegal aliens also contained language to cost taxpayers even more billions:  It makes the illegals eligible to get federal checks through two existing--and massively fraud-riddled--programs: the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC).

These two programs are already among the most corrupt and fraud-ridden federal programs--and that's saying a lot.  It's been widely known for years that the EITC was plagued with fraud, but a new report from the inspector general of the Internal Revenue Service reveals that the ACTC is just as bad.


The two programs give what is known as "refundable tax credits" to low-income workers  To most of us working stiffs a "tax credit" just reduces the amount of tax you have to pay, but in these two programs it means that at tax time, instead of paying taxes, participants get a check from the government.  Meaning, from you.

Sweet deal, eh?

So someone who had a modest $1,000 withheld to pay federal income tax could get an EITC "refund" check of $5,000.  [How the hell this can possibly be called a "refund" is never explained.]  The ACTC works similarly for low-income workers with children.

Supported by both political parties over the years, these two programs were ostensibly intended to encourage people to actually work.  The amount of money they the two have paid out has skyrocketed in recent years — payments increased 40 percent from 2007 to 2012, mirroring the rise in food stamp use.  And the amount of fraud in both is staggering: According to the inspector general, of the $63 billion in EITC payments in 2013, $15 billion was paid to people not eligible to receive a check, or who got more than they should have.

The rate of fraud is even worse with the ACTC.  Of the $26.6 billion in ACTC "credits"--bureau-babble for "checks"--given out in 2013, the inspector general says between 25 and 30 percent was improper.

Since federal law defines a program as having "significant improper payments" when such payments exceed 2.5 percent of all the money the program sends out, you'll be relieved to know that the director of the IRS fired 23 managers for incompetence and reduced the pay grades of 46 others, for letting these two programs continue at over ten times the fraud rate deemed "significant."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Just kidding!  No one was fired or disciplined, because everyone at the IRS was busy looking for Lois Lerner's missing emails linking the IRS political scandal to the White House!  But you probably guessed that, right?

While fraud in the Earned Income Tax Credit program has been obvious for years, the IRS has insisted that the ACTC program had a "low risk" of fraud.  But the inspector general concluded that the IRS has known all along that this was wrong.

Both congress and the president have ordered the IRS to crack down on improper payments. But since the executive branch has ignored congress for years, and the Emperor winked when he gave his "order," the agency got the real message, and according to the IG report the rate of fraudulent payments in programs has stayed constant over the past few years. while the amount of EITC claims paid in error has grown.

The report estimates there has been somewhere between $124 billion and $148 billion in improper EITC payments in the last decade. That's more than the federal government pays for, say, veterans' benefits, or the justice system, or agriculture, or transportation in any given year.

If the administration's record with Obamacare is any guide, the emperor's minions will soon start an aggressive, multilingual campaign to encourage illegal aliens amnestied by the emperor's decree to apply for as many benefits as possible.  And if a million or so of them aren't actually eligible to receive your tax dollars?  Not to worry--no one in the government will be checking that too closely.