It was actually a New Jersey official who put the wrong number in the wrong spot, but he’s going after something else here: The federal government’s lack of notification and stupidity in denying funds.

Here’s what happened: The Department of Education requested 2010 budget numbers and somebody made an error and sent back the 2008 numbers. Rather than notifying New Jersey of the error, the Department of Education simply decided that New Jersey didn’t qualify for the $400 million in funding.

The total application spanned more than 1,000 pages. The error consumed less than a page. Some mindless bureaucrat in Washington decided picking up the phone was too much work and that it was easier to deny New Jersey federal funding to which it was entitled. Such is the state of the federal government.

Any normal person would see the error, look at how much it would cost, and decide to pick up the phone and say, “Hey, you guys sent me the wrong number. Fax me the right one.” But no. The bureaucrat who processed the 1,000 page-plus application decided that one error on one page wasn’t worth his time, so he denied New Jersey $400 million.

For the record, Christie isn’t completely blowing off the error in New Jersey. In fact, he says that as governor he accepts responsibility for that error. But as he says, someone on the federal government should have had the common sense and decency to let New Jersey know so it could correct the mistake.

By the way: New Jersey officials did provide the correct figure at a presentation two weeks earlier. So it’s not like the federal government was unaware that New Jersey actually qualified.