[OC] One in three US federal contract dollars was awarded without competition in 2025 ($261B of $778B). Here's the share by state:

[u/tiagoantunespt]

[u/cavedave]

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[u/coffeeismydoc]

The legend should define the percentages a little more clearly. I’m not sure if a higher number is more competition

[u/tiagoantunespt → u/coffeeismydoc]

Thanks for the feedback! Higher is less competition. The percentage is the share of a state's federal contract dollars that were awarded without competition (sole-source). Connecticut at 95% means almost all of its contract money went out without other companies bidding. New Mexico at 3.6% means nearly all of it was competed. I'll label the legend more properly in the next one!

[u/ShrimplyAsking → u/coffeeismydoc]

Just think for a second and you’ll get it. No need to rush into the comments without trying to think critically first ;)

[u/tiagoantunespt]

Source: USAspending.gov, prime award contract transactions (FPDS), federal fiscal year 2025 (Oct 2024 – Sep 2025). "Sole-source" means dollars obligated on awards reported as not competed, not available for competition, or orders under those awards. It's the share of each state's dollars (by place of performance), not the share of contracts.

Tools: Analisa, a free site I'm building that maps federal contract money by state and county. The data is loaded into Postgres and the map is rendered in the browser. Interactive version, where you can click any state to see who got the money: https://tryanalisa.com/contracts?metric=not_competed_share&fy=2025&level=state

Some things I found while making it (sole-source isn't automatically shady, and a lot of these have a boring reason):

• Connecticut, 95%: $35.1B, of which $21.4B went to Electric Boat for nuclear submarines. Only two US shipyards can build them, so there's no one else to bid. Connecticut breakdown
• Texas, 56%: Lockheed Martin got $30.5B there. Its Fort Worth plant builds the F-35.
• Arizona, 60%: Raytheon got $10.6B, mostly missiles.
• New Mexico, 3.6% (the lowest): 81% of the state's money goes to running Sandia and Los Alamos national labs, and those management contracts were competed.
• The Navy is the biggest sole-source buyer: 58% of its $151B.
• Caltech got $2.3B with 100% sole-source. It runs NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
• Bechtel Plant Machinery got $2.1B, also 100% sole-source. It supplies the reactor parts for Navy nuclear ships.
• Over time it moves around: 32% in FY2023, 30% in FY2024, 34% in FY2025.

You can switch the map to counties, or to other measures like "single offer" (competed, but only one company bid). Happy to answer questions about the data.

[u/LCJonSnow → u/tiagoantunespt]

I'm curious how the it's tracked. You identified that Texas has Lockheed Martin, which has a Texas plant where the F-35 is built. That's true, but the Aeronautics segment of Lockheed is also headquartered there. So if Lockheed gets a sole source award for production or sustainment on any of its actively used planes, does that get reported there as well?

[u/tiagoantunespt → u/LCJonSnow]

Yep, each contract action has one "place of performance" field and the whole amount is booked there. So any Lockheed award that lists Fort Worth counts as Texas, no matter which plane. One catch: subcontractor money in other states still shows up as Texas.

Here's Texas, where the top awards are F-35 production lots: https://tryanalisa.com/contracts?metric=not_competed_share&fy=2025&level=state&place=48

And one of them, the LRIP Lot 12 contract, sole-source and booked to Fort Worth: https://tryanalisa.com/contracts?metric=not_competed_share&fy=2025&level=state&place=48&detail=award%3A16585276

Happy to look up a specific program if you're curious.

[u/LCJonSnow → u/tiagoantunespt]

I just clicked on Georgia (C-130 plant) and there's $2.3B there, so looks like it does get spread out and not all rolled in at the BU headquarters.

[u/CaptainONaps → u/tiagoantunespt]

Super cool data, thank you.

Connecticut caught my eye, since they're the new Kaman Islands, or Switzerland. I assumed it's international tax free banking type stuff.

But thanks to your details, I can see it's actually $76B for 14 subs estimated to be completed by 2038.

The US currently has 71 nuclear powered subs. They recently signed a deal with Australia to supply them with "some subs" at some point in the 2030's. But it specifically says, not these new ones.

The rest of the world has about 70 nuclear powered "vessels" combined, and there's about 30-40 in production right now. Most of those are being built by China and Russia.

All these ships are estimated to be completed in the 2030's. So, I'm reading this to mean the whole world is ramping up for war.

Which is surprising. Because you'd think if you were planning on a big world war, you'd want to use your money for the newer, cheaper, AI powered autonomous weapons. Not $10b subs that take 12 years to build and shoot missiles that are anywhere from $2m to $87m each. And each sub can only carry about 40 to 16 respectively.

So each sub is worth about $6b, and they can carry up to $1b of missiles, which could be as little as 14 missiles.

For $7b (the price to arm one new sub), the US could buy up to 17.5m tactical kamikaze drones, like the ones being used in Russia, Ukraine, and Iran.

[u/Miningaccident → u/CaptainONaps]

Not ramping up, the SSN-774s and SSBN-826s under production are replacements for boats that are approaching retirement. The actual size of the US submarine force is going to remain relatively constant.

The cost is irrelevant, as most of it is going to the SSBN-826s which are the most critical part of the nuclear triad (SSBNs are responsible for guaranteeing second strike). Additionally, small UUVs or drones don’t fill the same role in doctrine as SSNs or SSBNs so it’s not about one or the other, ideally you have both.

[u/CaptainONaps → u/Miningaccident]

Your account is 5 years old, you've only commented 86 times, and they're all about war machines.

And your icon is a military satellite launched in 2010.

That is very interesting.

So, I'd like to ask how you know all this, but I assume you can't/won't say.

So instead I'll ask, who is the threat? Who are we planning to hit with sub missiles in 15 years? And how is their military stock pile coming?

[u/Miningaccident → u/CaptainONaps]

I’m just an engineer who enjoys discussing naval and aerospace systems, everything I comment is derived from open source information.

As for targets, SSBNs ideally should never be used as they exclusively carry ballistic missiles (that’s what the B stands for) with nuclear warheads. If they are used, then the US is at war with another nuclear power (primarily Russia or China) and the world as we know it has ceased to exist. The SSN-826 class will carry 16 trident D5 SLBMs with anywhere between 1 and 12 warheads and re-entry vehicles, but 4 or 8 is most common (seemingly). SSNs (aka attack submarines) are more generalists, they primarily target enemy subs, warships, and commercial shipping. Additionally, SSNs may hunt or shadow SSBNs (primarily Russian and Chinese) and attempt to destroy them before they can launch in the case of nuclear war.

Stockpile wise, we don’t really know for the US, and especially don’t know for Russia and China. That sort of information is very highly classified.

[u/CaptainONaps → u/Miningaccident]

Cool. I Don't like this, but I like that you told me about it.

I can't help but focus on this part, since I'm ignorant of the rest;

"the US is at war with another nuclear power (primarily Russia or China) and the world as we know it has ceased to exist."

We are in a cold war with those countries already. Everyone is doing land grabs, and stockpiling weapons. The wars have already started. No end in sight.

The world I grew up in has already ceased to exist. And at risk of sounding pessimistic, I'm not exactly nostalgic about things currently.

[u/Miningaccident → u/CaptainONaps]

If it makes you feel any better, nuclear stockpiles are way down from their peak in the Cold War and command and control systems are way better nowadays, which reduces the chance of accidental launches.

Also, the potency of these systems themselves acts as a deterrent. No nuclear power wants to incite retaliation (which is pretty much guaranteed by SSBNs), so it’s in everyone best interest to be very careful about managing escalation, even if it doesn’t seem that way on the surface sometimes.

[u/CaptainONaps → u/Miningaccident]

Nah, I'm not sure one quick bad day is more scary than what Wall St is predicting for the next 20 years.

But I understand I've got some odd world views.

Thanks for all the information. You're an interesting redditor. Cheers.

[u/CMFETCU → u/CaptainONaps]

Adding to this, SSBNs are nearly the single most complex machine the human race has created. They are a critical element of the triad of nuclear deterrent that has been in place since 1959. Since the united states no longer does the rather risky things it did in the 50s and 60s of keeping planes in the air 24/7/365 with live nuclear payloads, and the locations of missile ICBM silos are known targets; nuclear submarines are the only delivery method of guaranteed retribution that exist where an enemy should not know where they are.

For the last 50 years there has not been a day where nuclear SSBNs were ready to fire missiles from unknown locations in the ocean. They are expensive to make, and slow to make. They are critical to have, and the current fleet is aging.

As much as it would be nice to no longer need them, until there is a better way to state clearly, "even if you nuke us off the continent, you too will perish", they are necessary for MAD (mutually assured destruction) to work.

To ensure you always have a crew training and another at sea, each sub has to have fully trained with replacements a blue and a gold crew. They swap out patrols on the subs each time the sub docks back at home port to resupply. Each sub has maintenance schedules and they need to be able to never be without a nuclear deterrent at sea, so we need more than a few in the pacific and Atlantic. There are 14 Ohio class SSBNs and at any given time several need to be in the water.

You can imagine then that this sort of absolute readiness with the most complex objects mankind has built requires more than 1 submarine and to not let them become so aged that they cannot function well.

Hence the new subs.

Worth mentioning, the US and the UK have shared an agreement for the ICBM missiles themselves where both nations use the same and pick randomly from the same pool of missiles for arming their submarines. They share designs and specifications for warheads, and arming fuses. Since there are interoperability needs, as well as needs to accommodate new warhead designs, it is a rather complex multi country program that is the most secret of active known contracting. (dark projects not included)

The threat is any nuclear power.

We hope to never hit anyone with these weapons ever, as that would be the end of the world as we know it.

China is the single largest future adversary in the world, and their submarine fleet is expanding at a rate faster than the United states. Same for their nuclear stockpile growth rates, and their number of missiles on hand.

That is also why attack submarines are needed, to shadow the fleet of nuclear submarines and try to ensure their capabilities, habits, operational signatures, and sound profiles are as well known as possible in case they need to be preemptively sunk.

[u/TacTurtle → u/CaptainONaps]

>Whole world is ramping up for war.

I suspect what it really means is the last of the Cold War-era ships (1980s- early 1990s) are finally reaching the end of their 40-50 year service lives and need either substantial overhaul or replacement, with replacement being preferred due to technological advances and tactical / strategic use changes.

[u/tiagoantunespt]

Here's where the same $261B goes: which agencies awarded it and what it bought.

More than half ($142.5B) is weapons, aircraft, ships and vehicles, and the Navy alone is a third of the total. Outside of defense it gets a lot smaller: professional services $25.6B, R&D $21.1B.

Same source as the map (USAspending/FPDS, FY2025). The ribbons add up to 98% of the total because the small "other agency to other category" flow isn't drawn.

[u/Miningaccident]

Connecticut stays winning.

[u/Low_Low9667 → u/Miningaccident]

Military procurement for high specialty goods. I.e aircraft engines from Pratt & Whitney (East Hartford), submarines from General Dynamics (Groton).

[u/Miningaccident → u/Low_Low9667]

I know, I live in the state and work as an engineer for one of the sole source recipients. Best state in the union in my opinion.

[u/GravitasFailures → u/Miningaccident]

That’s really off-books military shit, hardcore r&d.

In this case electric boat out of groton’s nuclear subs.