Things aren’t getting any easier for U.S. taxpayers. Here’s how some of their hard-earned money was spent in January – and there was no return on their “investment”, it should be pointed out.

Let’s start with the “awards” given out for Naval construction projects.

Jan. 2nd General Electric, Lynn, MA $ 572,500,000
BAE Systems, Minneapolis, MN $ 19,273,217
Lockheed Martin Mission Systems, Moorestown, NJ $ 14,432,389
Northrop Grumman Systems, Rolling Meadows, IL $ 12,083,976
Lockheed Martin Corp., Baltimore, MD $ 9,710,890

Jan. 3rd Raytheon Co., Tucson, AZ $ 52,084,929

Jan. 6th TTT-Cubed, Inc., Fremont, CA $ 26,083,588
The Entwhistle Co., Hudson, MA $ 10,981,190
Raytheon Co., McKinney, TX $ 10,510,029

Jan. 7th Vigor Shipyards, Inc., Seattle, WA $ 33,077,000

Jan. 8th BAE Systems, Norfolk, VA $ 13,895,899

Jan. 9th Electric Boat Corp., Groton, CT $ 15,035,596
Huntington Ingalls, Inc., Newport News, VA $ 8,163,923
Briar Tek Inc., Alexandria, VA $ 8,070,975

Jan. 10th Systems Engineering Support Co., $ 18,626,453
Micro USA Inc., Poway, CA $ 17,622,114
Lockheed Martin Corp., Baltimore, MD $ 13,188,967
Airtec, Inc., California, MD $ 9,477,860
General Dynamics, Norfolk, VA $ 7,475,361

Jan. 13th Affordable Engineering Services, Totowa, NJ $ 20,832,874

Jan. 14th Bechtel Plant Machinery, Monroeville, PA $ 593,104,854
Electric Boat Corp., Groton, CT $ 15,000,000
Lockheed Martin, Manassas, VA $ 8,863,977

Jan. 15th Bell-Boeing Joint Project, Amarillo, TX $ 26,682,561
Raytheon Co., Tewksbury, MA $ 25,485,600
Rolls-Royce Corp., Indianapolis, IN $ 13,556,862

Jan. 16th Electric Boat Corp., Groton, CT $ 29,848,059

Jan. 17th General Dynamics, Norfolk, VA $ 226,700,000
Northrop Grumman, Baltimore, MD $ 33,017,449
Transport Systems, Stamford, CT $ 7,366,373

Jan. 22nd The Boeing Co., Jacksonville, FL $ 17,820,844
Bell Helicopter Textron, Hurst, TX $ 13,495,182
EFW, Inc., Fort Worth, TZ $ 11,666,579
Rockwell Collins, Inc., Cedar Rapids IA $ 8,022,845
Cortana Corp., Falls Church, VA $ 7,760,214

Jan. 23rd BAE Systems, Honolulu, HI $ 37,439,506
Kemron Environmental Services, Atlanta, GA $ 25,000,000
L-3 Corp. Systems West, Salt Lake City, UT $ 17,611,443
Huntington Ingalls, Newport News, VA $ 9,800,000

Jan. 24th Wolf Creek Federal Services, Anchorage, AK $ 12,960,577
Patriot Contract Services, Concord, CA $ 7,236,660

Jan. 27th L-3 Communications, Madison, MS $ 13,764,771
Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. McLean, VA $ 12,502,113

Jan. 28th Marvin Engineering Co., Inglewood, CA $ 7,373,028

Jan. 29th Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, TX $ 35,781,319
Raytheon Technical Services, Indianapolis, IN $ 17,257,960
CoSTAR Services, San Antonio, TX $ 14,483,217
Detyens Shipyards Inc., North Charleston, SC $ 11,349,714
Vigor Marine LLC, Portland, OR $ 8,092,975

Jan. 30th Rolls-Royce Corp., Indianapolis, IN $ 90,164,920
Jacobs & HDR Joint Venture, Arlington, VA $ 60,000,000
General Dynamics, Ladson, SC $ 25,960,947
Bell-Boeing Joint Project, Amarillo, TX $ 10,322,803
EJB Facilities Services, Arlington, VA $ 7,261,421
Jan. 31st CH2M HILL Constructors, Englewood, CO $ 67,240,000
The Boeing Co., St. Louis, MO $ 38,103,120
The Boeing Co., St. Louis, MO $ 26,836,716

Those “awards” listed above come to a cool $ 3,744,097,648. It doesn’t look like much, but when you write it out – or say it aloud – it looks and sounds like this; “Three billion, seven hundred forty four million, ninety seven thousand, six hundred forty eight dollars.”

That’s a lot of taxpayer money, but it pales in comparison to the $ 9,178,082,368 the Army was “awarded” in January. “Nine billion, one hundred seventy eight million, eighty two thousand, three hundred sixty eight dollars,” is how that figure is spelled out.

In case we forgot to mention it, the numbers the Department of “Defense” publishes every month do not include “awards” less than $ 6,500,000. It’s anybody’s guess what those unpublished numbers total – or where those “awards” go.

In November we began including the payouts to other “Defense” Department beneficiaries. Here’s what we were able to uncover for the month of January:

The Air Force $ 1,477,758,027
The Defense Logistics Agency $ 2,754,660,747
The Defense Information Systems $ 400,000,000
The Missile Defense Agency $ 177,674,868
The U.S. Transportation Command $ 85,611,925
The Defense Advanced Research Agency $ 39,423,731
The U.S. Special Operations Command $ 8,232,079

The above “awards,” added to what the Navy and Army received, total $ 17,865,541,393 – but that’s just the figure we were allowed to know about. You can be sure that because of what has not been made public the above numbers are nowhere near the exact figure.

Just for the heck of it, look at it this way. Acknowledging the fact that those numbers have had no effect at all upon our lives – because we’ve all been kept pretty much in the dark about these “awards” – how would our lives be affected if those funds were spent for the benefit of the average American?

Those funds were paid out on 20 different days during the month of January. The average daily payout for that 20-day period came to $ 893,277,070 – at least.

Just a one-day payout of eight hundred ninety million dollars is enough to revitalize at least twenty U.S. shipyards! The eight hundred ninety million dollars on the second day – and on, let’s say, three subsequent days during the year – could fully pay for the construction of four container ships in each of those twenty revitalized yards.

The eight hundred million dollars on the third day would guarantee a $ 500 day’s pay for 1,760,000 of our presently unemployed Americans. Over that 20-day payout period, therefore, more than 35 million Americans would find employment in our shipyards, supporting facilities, container ports, trucking companies, and the thousands of up-and-running manufacturing facilities racing to keep up with the demands of millions of newly employed Americans.

The availability of these funds would allow us to build the hundreds of container handling terminals Secretary Mineta told us we’d need – and just think of the positive effects the hundreds of U.S.-built – and patented – container ships would have on Short Sea Shipping!