AMERICA:Communities across the US are diverting funds to more urgent needs, such as soup kitchens, writes DENIS STAUNTON.
ON THE Fourth of July every year, the skies above Colorado Springs light up in a massive fireworks display as six howitzer cannons blast in time with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, performed by the Colorado Springs Philharmonic Orchestra and watched by 50,000 people.
Tonight, however, for the first time in 30 years, Colorado Springs will be dark and silent as the donors who fund the Independence Day display keep their wallets closed and local authorities say they can no longer afford to pay overtime to police and emergency services.
Across the United States, communities are cancelling or cutting back their Fourth of July celebrations as businesses, cities and state governments feel the impact of a recession that shows little sign of ending.
Unemployment figures released this week showed that 467,000 Americans lost their jobs in June, bringing the jobless rate to a 26-year high of 9.5 per cent and the number of jobs lost in the recession to 6.5 million.
Lower tax revenues have hit state governments especially hard because most states have a constitutional requirement to balance their budgets each year. At least 42 of the 50 states are facing budget deficits and the fiscal situation in California is so bad that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger this week ordered state officials to start paying bills with IOUs.
Some communities have diverted the funds from Independence Day fireworks displays to more urgent needs, such as soup kitchens and homeless shelters, which have seen a surge in demand in recent months. Others, like Milwaukee, are returning to more low-tech celebrations with parades of children on bicycles carrying home-made flags and free ice cream parties in the park.
As the federal government expands under Barack Obama, the effects of the recession are less evident in Washington DC than in other US cities and the capital will celebrate today in style. The national independence day parade starts at 11.45am and in the evening, up to a million people will gather on the National Mall for a public concert followed by a massive fireworks display.
In New York, the annual Macy’s fireworks display is moving from the East River to the Hudson to mark the 400th anniversary of the voyage upriver of Henry Hudson. Six barges on the river will be loaded with 45,000lbs of explosives that will shoot 1,000 feet into the sky. The size of the display may do little to boost the American economy, however, because the fireworks have been imported from China.
New Yorkers and the city’s visitors have more to celebrate today than American independence: for the first time since September 11th, the public will be allowed to climb to the crown of the Statue of Liberty.
After the 9/11 attacks authorities closed Liberty Island altogether, fearing that it was too tempting a target for terrorists. The island was reopened three months later but the statue remained closed for a further three years. Since 2004, visitors have been allowed into its vast pedestal but many tourists were disappointed when they were not allowed to climb up to the crown.
Mr Obama, who was celebrating the 11th birthday of his daughter Malia at Camp David yesterday, will return to the White House today to celebrate Independence Day with military families. His predecessor, George Bush, will make one of his rare public appearances at a Fourth of July event in Woodward, a town of just 12,000 people in Oklahoma.
When Landon Laubhan, the 28-year-old promoter of Woodward’s Let Freedom Ring 2009 celebration, invited the outgoing president to address the event last April, he was expecting the brush-off. “I was just inviting him as a person deeply in love with America sending an invitation to another person deeply in love with America,” Mr Laubhan told Associated Press.
“At first I thought, ‘President Bush, July 4th, no way is he even available’. I almost asked for an off day in October or November, because I felt it would even be a stupid question to ask for the Fourth.”
Mr Bush will receive an undisclosed fee for his 40-minute speech and more than 9,000 people have stumped up between $25 and $250 for tickets. Oklahoma has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964 and Mr Bush – who left office with an approval rating of 34 per cent – received 81 per cent of the vote in Woodward in 2004.
“President Bush believes there is no place better than Woodward, Oklahoma, to celebrate the Fourth of July,” his spokesman said.