Columnists such as the Washington Post's Catherine Rampell are continuously touting the fraud-riddled Earned Income Tax Credit as a panacea and denouncing any effort to correct its problems as cruel and heartless to the poor.  In her most recent column, Rampell sounds as if there might be small innocent errors and minor fraud in the EITC program, but it is otherwise a great policy that helps jobs.

What a naïve and big-government statist point of view.

Is $15.6 billion of known fraud in one year really minor fraud?  That is around 24% of the EITC paid out that year.  That is massive fraud.  The program has been misused for years.

Rampell also says the EITC helps jobs, but the labor participation rate is at a 40-year low.  Where is the evidence that it helps jobs?  It essentially refunds Social Security taxes to people.

When people go from getting the EITC to paying regular tax, somewhere around the $30,000 income level, it amounts to a tremendously high tax bracket, which discourages people from moving up the economic ladder.

There are other kinds of garden-variety fraud coming from it, too.  Here is an example of such huge fraud.

This study shows the small benefits and large costs of the EITC.

Maybe if the Obama administration would have spent more time going after fraud instead of targeting political opponents, it would have been more efficient

Of course, IRS employees who didn't pay taxes also got bonuses.  It is sure hard to see where there is any room to cut their budget.