While we're talking about incompetent government—see the ObamaCare website rollout—the IRS inspector general reported on Tuesday that from 2003-2012 the feds paid at least $110 billion and as much as $132.6 billion in improper earned-income tax credits. That's at least $11 billion a year, or more than the $9.5 billion Congress will spend on the Department of Commerce this fiscal year.

The earned-income tax credit, or EITC, is a major welfare program intended to supplement the incomes of the working poor. It is "refundable," which means you get the credit even if you pay no income tax. In 2011, more than 27 million families received EITC payments of nearly $62 billion.

But here's the catch: The IG report says that in 2011 at least 21% of those payments and as much as 26% were "improper." The percentages in 2012 were 21% and 25%. In other words, at least one of every five dollars, and maybe one in four, of EITC payouts were in some way undeserved.

The IG report attributes the erroneous payments to the complicated structure of the EITC and the overall tax code, confusion and turnover among claimants, "unscrupulous tax return preparers" and fraud. The nature and scope of this problem have been known for years, and President Obama issued a 2009 executive order instructing the IRS to reduce the bad payments.

But the IG reports that the IRS has made little progress, has not even established reduction targets "as required," and is not in compliance with the executive order. Perhaps the IRS chiefs were too busy monitoring the tax returns of tea-party groups.