In yet another amazing tale of gross incompetence in the federal government, the U.S. Education Secretary has decided not to pursue collection of monies they have overpaid to a student loan company. It's not very much, just about $800 million or so. Nelnet, a student loan provider, has billed the government at an unusually high rate of return and when auditors discovered it, it went no further.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings rejected the inspector general's recommendation that the department should seek to recover past overpayments. She claims it may be 'precedent-setting'. We'd hate to set a precedent that if you overbill the government they will come after your ass to get their money back, that would be wrong.

If you were a small business owner and found out that one of your vendors had over-billed you for something, would you just write it off? No, you'd probably cause a great big scene in their office and try your best to get their AP person fired.

And for you UT students, what if you were shorted on your bag of weed? If you didn't demand the right amount of weed from your vendor, you'd sure as hell spread the word that he's putting his finger on the scales and he'd be out of business soon.

This is why people say that if you can't get a job in corporate America, maybe you're just smart enough to work for the government. Elected or otherwise.