How much did the military spend yesterday? $4.3 billion

Yesterday's big winner in defense spending was Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. with a $2.4 billion modification (increase) to an existing contract for F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter initial spares.

This information is provided to highlight just how much taxpayer money is spent, per day, to enrich companies participating in the military industrial complex. The idea that our economy requires a governmental redistribution of wealth from individual taxpayers to large corporations that are friendly and well-connected to government came from the Keynesian argument for demand “stimulus” -- that our economy's health depends on higher and higher levels of spending. For this reason, personal saving is discouraged and often penalized by the government. But because individuals still tend to follow personal incentives to save, the Keynesian argument remains in effect: that government should spend money the public is reluctant to spend through tax-and-spend policies.

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Below are the contracts awarded by the Defense Department
August 23, 2019
totaling $4,387,524,488

Recent record daily spending: $17 billion on August 5, 2019

Navy - $3,570,672,420

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics (Ft. Worth, TX) $2,426,326,544
General Dynamics National Steel & Shipbuilding (San Diego, CA) $1,077,009,532
Caterpillar Defense (Peoria, IL) $54,000,000
RAFAEL Advanced Defense Systems (Haifa, Israel) $13,336,344

Army - $643,240,584

Raytheon (McKinney, TX) $534,000,000
MD Helicopters (Mesa, AZ) $50,440,584
Black & Veatch Special Projects (Overland Park, KS), AECOM Services (Boston, MA), Zapata Group (Charlotte, NC) $49,000,000
Burns & McDonnell Engineering (Kansas City, MO) $9,800,000

Washington Headquarters Services - $100,000,000

Signature Renovations (Capital Heights, MD) $100,000,000

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - $58,000,000

SAIC (McLean, VA) $48,000,000
B&H International (Bakersfield, CA) $10,000,000

Air Force - $15,611,484

Booz Allen Hamilton (McLean, VA) $8,004,263
Next Century Corp. (Annapolis Junction, MD) $7,607,221