This year, because of Washington, D.C. dysfunction and the failure of the president and Congress, Democrats and Republicans, to arrive at a budget compromise, there will be no fireworks for the children at several military bases, from Hawaii to North Carolina/.../
"The problem is, you as an individual can't make a donation with strings attached and tell the government how they have to spend that money. Only Congress can do that," said defense budget analyst Todd Harrison.
The entire defense budget is about $525 billion. Scrapping fireworks displays at just a few military installations saves just a few hundred thousand dollars, or a very tiny percentage of the overall funds.
But as they say, every dollar helps. Harrison said fizzling the fireworks is just one of many budgeting measures sequestration necessitates, and one of the easiest.
"I think people really have to put it in perspective. Do you really want to complain about not having a fireworks display on July 4th when roughly a third of the Air Force's fire squadron is grounded due to sequestration?" said Harrison. "The priorities for defense spending have to be the things that are actually important for our national security, and that's what we have to keep in mind."