Of course, the mainstream media has to find a negative spin for the 4th of July holiday.  They seem to have a habit of doing that, no matter what time of the year or what the story is.  Normally though it has key words such as jobs, economy, greedy Wall Street, greedy executive, etc.

Luckily, they only used one of their new favorite key words this time: economy.

This time around, it’s fireworks talk.

“Due to the sluggish economy, some municipalities [big word for CITY] have had to cut down on their 4th of July fireworks show or scrap it altogether.  Many citizens have had to travel to nearby communities if they are looking for a patriotic show in the sky for their family this year.”

Okay.  So?  How is this a problem?

I see it as a good thing.  A VERY good thing.

Let’s take a look at my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio.

According to cleveland.com, there are over 10 different fireworks shows on the west side of Cleveland and its suburbs ALONE.  That’s a whole lot of shows for half of a region of only 2 million.

According to a quick search on the intrawebs, a 30 minute firework show can run between $30,000-$60,000 with the staff to run it.  I’m assuming that’s not including the public service staff (police, fire, EMS, other city officials) to keep traffic and crowd control at a reasonable level for an already disgruntled group of people in one spot.  (Don’t tell me you actually like dealing with the crowds, crying and complaining kids and uncomfortable feel of laying on a towel on very uncomfortable ground… or maybe that’s just me).

If we use really quick just-to-prove-a-quick-point math… 10 fireworks shows at $50k apiece (I like big and fancy) is $500,000 total.

That’s a whole lot of money for a whole lot of fireworks.  Especially if some of these communities pull in a very small crowd for these shows (more shows, less people per show).  Especially when probably half of those communities are having financial issues.

Let’s pretend here that these communities all put their resources together in the name of financial responsibility to its residents and had just FIVE fireworks shows (and trust me this really IS pretend… if you think this could and would actually happen, I have some beach front property in Alaska I think you’d love to hear about).

That’s only $250,000.  If each city donated to the pot, all the communities could save alot of money and, in theory, buy a bigger and badder fireworks show for its residents… IF they could work together and pool their resources together!  They could even save money on the public service staff that would be needed.  So much money could be saved that would lead to cities being able to keep the services that actually MEAN something to their residents.

From a safety issue… imagine how they could save!  Forget the financial savings on insurance (and you thought your car rate keeps going up), think about the safety of your citizens watching it.  Every year, people are killed due to an accident or their pure stupidity.  Less firework shows, less chance of accidents or Darwinism at work.

But we’re talking about politics here.  We’re talking about egos here.  We’re talking about rivalries here.  We’re talking about personal feelings here (if you don’t believe me, you haven’t been involved in politics).

So I guess we’ll just leave this pipe dream here online.

Happy 4th of July.  God Bless America.