I could see why the government rushed in with trillions of dollars to save the country's failing banks, back when the word bailout had not yet become political Kryptonite.

After all, they told us then, the world economy and maybe the future of capitalism teetered in the balance.

And I hold no bank bailout grudges, even though I never got the impression that Wall Street was appropriately appreciative of the taxpayers' help.

What I can't understand now is why the government should be doling out money to the nation's private shipyards, when no great shipyard crisis looms.

Last week, the U.S. Maritime Administration's Assistance to Small Shipyards Grant Program (imagine the bureaucracy) gave out some $14 million to shipyards around the country, including $1.4 million to the Thames Shipyard & Repair Co. here in New London.

It's the latest handout in a program that has spent some $130 million in the last three years, apparently helping an industry that none of the rest of us knew was even in need.

What about all the other businesses that are in obvious trouble?

Everyone knows newspapers are on the ropes. Where's ours?

I don't especially begrudge the Wronowski family and their Thames Shipyard a piece of this pie, as long as it's being cut up. I'd just as soon see them get it as some privately owned shipyard in, say, Seattle.

I am curious, though, why they haven't gotten grants earlier from the program, given the family's long history of aggressive lobbying.

When you put the name Wronowski into a search engine for political donors you can practically see the smoke, it spits out so many results.

Each and every member of the Connecticut congressional delegation signing a March 9 letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, supporting the Thames Shipyard grant application, has received campaign donations from members of the Wronowski family.

I couldn't find any Wronowski donations to U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, the only member of the Connecticut delegation who didn't sign the letter to Secretary LaHood.

Of the six who did sign, only three, Sens. Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman and Rep. Joe Courtney, issued press releases about last week's awarding of the grant.

I put in calls to all three, to ask more about why they support giving taxpayer money to private businesses.

Jason Gross, Courtney's chief of staff, responded by email to say the grant money will mean the creation of new jobs - the shipyard says up to 20 new jobs could be created by the improvements to one of its drydocks - and increase taxable property in the city.

He noted, too, that if the money didn't go to New London it would have gone to some other state.

Gross also said the program is designed to modernize shipyards like Thames Shipyard to "keep our nation's maritime industry competitive with other nations in the world."

He loses me there.

I fail to see how borrowing money from the Chinese to give it to the owners of a shipyard in New London, to repair ferries that carry people from Martha's Vineyard, Block Island and Long Island, is going to reposition us in the global marine economy.

The Wronowski family has built some very successful businesses here in eastern Connecticut. They employ a lot of people, pay a lot of taxes and, on their many ferries, bring a lot of people in and out of New London every day.

None of that, though, should qualify them, or any other private business for that matter, for a federal handout.

It's the worst kind of bailout, an unnecessary one, since there's no indication at all that the shipyard isn't already prospering.

This is the opinion of David Collins.