Honest mistakes or fraud - it hardly matters when you're talking about $100 billion in payments made by the federal government to individuals and businesses that they shouldn't have.

Most observers believe this to be the tip of the iceberg. An $80 billion a year  program like SNAP might have a fraud rate of 20%. Medicare fraud is even bigger.

But this figure comes directly from government agencies who estimate the amount of improper payments every year.

Associated Press:

By its own estimate, the government made about $100 billion in payments last year to people who may not have been entitled to receive them — tax credits to families that didn’t qualify, unemployment benefits to people who had jobs and medical payments for treatments that might not have been necessary.

Congressional investigators say the figure could be even higher.

The Obama administration has reduced the amount of improper payments since they peaked in 2010. Still, estimates from federal agencies show that some are wasting big money at a time when Congress is squeezing agency budgets and looking to save more.

“Nobody knows exactly how much taxpayer money is wasted through improper payments, but the federal government’s own astounding estimate is more than half a trillion dollars over the past five years,” said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. “The fact is, improper payments are staggeringly high in programs designed to help those most in need — children, seniors and low-income families.”

Mica chairs the House Oversight subcommittee on government operations. The subcommittee is holding a hearing on improper payments Wednesday afternoon.

Each year, federal agencies are required to estimate the amount of improper payments they issue. They include overpayments, underpayments, payments to the wrong recipient and payments that were made without proper documentation.

Some improper payments are the result of fraud, while others are unintentional, caused by clerical errors or mistakes in awarding benefits without proper verification.

In 2013, federal agencies made $97 billion in overpayments, according to agency estimates. Underpayments totaled $9 billion.

A trillion dollars over ten years is what Obamacare was supposed to cost (it's twice that now), so in essence, we throw away one Obamacare program every decade.

I think I'm going to be sick.

Incompetence, laziness, ignorance - the reasons don't matter as much as the bureaucratic culture that supports an attitude that finds this acceptable. Or, at least, a cost of doing business.Until there is a change in the bureaucracies in Washington that treats taxpayer money as if it were their own, we'll continue to hold $100 billion bonfires on the Mall every year.