If the government overpaid contractors billions of dollars, should the contractors have to pay it back?

How about citizens that were overpaid?

The Federal Government will never take responsibility for their financial mistakes.
Disclaimer, long, convoluted story coming.
When I was in the Army, after I got divorced I went to Finance and asked what part of my BAQ I was still able to draw since I still had a dependent that I was responsible for supporting. They gave me a number and paid me that amount.
Every year and every time I changed duty stations I had to recertify that paperwork.
Fast forward three years and about 6 weeks before I am getting out of the Army, I get a notice to go to the Finance division. They inform me that have been overpaid for the last three years and owe the DOD about $12,000. Now, there is a packet that someone can fill out to have a debt forgiven, however is is about as thick as a book, and takes 8-12 weeks to process (I am 6 weeks from getting out).
So I complete the packet and hand carry it up several layers of the chain of command for signatures, and turn it in. Fast forward a few times for several years, and I am getting harassed by DOD for repayment of this debt, and I appeal the debt at one point thinking it was taken care of. They then tell me I didn’t appeal in a timely manner so they can’t even consider forgiving it. I tell them I completed the paperwork before I left the Army, they say they don’t have it, I say you must have lost it, and they tell me, and I quote, “we don’t have any record of us losing your paperwork”, that is the Federal Government in a nutshell. I eventually have to get my Congressman involved (after finding a copy of the original paperwork in a storage box) and it was all settled.

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Are you trying to get us to believe the government has wasted money ?!?!?!?!

That may come as a shock to @geezer and @mcarley…

Reason #257 why we need smaller government…

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Hardly. We’re all aware.

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