Some federal employees bristle at America’s 250th birthday festivities after year of agonizing government overhaul

By Danya Gainor, Tami Luhby, CNN

(CNN) — Barefoot on the wooded shore of Alabama’s Lake Martin, 9-year-old Edward tipped back his head, mouth agape with awe, as fireworks exploded overhead, their echoes reverberating through the towering pines around him.

It was the United States’ bicentennial, a Fourth of July unlike any the young boy – or the rest of the country – had ever seen. The US was bruised by Watergate, the Vietnam War and stubborn economic turmoil that summer of 1976, yet the union marked its 200th birthday with a spectacle of pyrotechnics, parades and patriotic pageantry that seemed to insist America still believed in itself.

Edward remembers the reek of smoke that settled into his dark blonde hair, combed neatly over the top of his head, from the sparklers he waved at his squealing cousins while firecrackers reflected across the lake next to their grandparent’s cabin. Wrapped in red, white and blue, and with fine-grain sand wedged between his wriggling toes, Edward didn’t want the night to end.

Fifty years later, his military haircut glistens with silver from a lifetime serving in fatigues. But this Fourth of July, Edward plans to stay home.

Across the country, a similar story is quietly unfolding beneath the fireworks and fanfare of America’s semiquincentennial.

Some federal workers who were once self-defined by their national pride now find themselves opting out of the historic, flag-waving celebrations. They say they’re exhausted and angry following President Donald Trump’s sweeping overhaul of the federal government, which saw political purges, mass terminations and drastic spending cuts.

Jonas, a program analyst at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was on the job for five days before Hurricane Harvey flattened homes along the Texas coast in 2017. He said he couldn’t be prouder of his work for survivors during his deployment.

But after more than eight years of devout civil service, Jonas lost that fulfilling federal job. He was rehired six months later, but while his income was on hiatus, Jonas was forced to dip into savings and ask family for help to pay for doctors’ appointments to address his disability.

These employees, who make up a historically nonpartisan federal workforce, have been swept up by partisan politics as Trump worked to aggressively implement his second-term agenda.

“My whole life until recently I was very proud of our country. Every federal worker, from the janitor on up the chain, swore an oath to defend and protect the Constitution,” said Edward. “Now, I don’t even want anything to do with the Fourth. I’m angry and ashamed.”

CNN has used pseudonyms for some government employees and granted anonymity to others in this article over privacy and retaliation concerns.

2025 was punctuated by dramatic downsizing, partisan firings, early retirements and incentivized resignations of government workers. The federal workforce shrunk by more than 278,000 under Trump. Some agencies are in the process of being dismantled; others were shut down altogether.

Edward said he watched beloved colleagues, some suddenly struggling to cover mortgages and childcare, step away last year from jobs they had expected to hold for decades.

Now every reminder of America’s 250th birthday – a grocery store display, a banner hanging in Edward’s subdivision, a television commercial – makes the 30-year military veteran shudder, each one a reminder of the colleagues he says were wronged.

Pained federal workers opt out of hometown July 4 parties

More than two million federal workers are deeply entrenched in every corner of the United States, and the destruction rippled across the country when Trump brought the hammer down on the workforce last year. Over 85% of federal employees live outside of the Washington, DC, beltway, with states like Florida, Texas and California hubs for more than 100,000 workers each, government data shows.

Left in the wake were surviving employees forced to take on extra responsibilities and keep their heads down as they worked to dodge more reductions in force and devastating government shutdowns.

Despite the burnout, Edward says he has no party plans for the federal holiday.

“I feel perfectly comfortable staying in,” he said. “There won’t be a flag out front, decorations on the mantel. It bothers me because I am so proud of (America’s) past, but I can’t be proud of our present.”

This year, the usual backyard cookouts and fireworks are being eclipsed by once-in-a-generation celebrations marking the nation’s 250th birthday.

In New York City, a flotilla of tall ships and military vessels will offer parade sails, tours of the ships and more over the July 4 weekend. Edward, who has spent his lifelong federal career at a military base in New York, has little interest in driving to Niagara Falls for its days-long fireworks display, let alone traveling to New York City for its sprawling maritime celebration.

At one Social Security field office in South Texas, workers used to look forward to a festive lunch before the Fourth of July. Last year, they gathered together for a barbecue meal at the job.

But this year, many of the staffers aren’t in the mood to celebrate, one longtime employee, who asked that her name not be used for fear of retaliation, told CNN. Morale is low after the agency lost several thousand workers under the Trump administration, employees were reassigned to answer Social Security’s 800-number and the workload grew, she said.

While she typically enjoys setting off fireworks and watching local towns’ displays for the holiday, she doesn’t feel like doing much this year. Independence Day, which she viewed as celebrating the diversity of Americans who have come together as a unified nation, has lost its purpose under Trump, she said.

Within her agency, she has seen the administration attack union rights and diversity efforts, which she feels are taking steps backwards. She scoffed at the July 4th holiday baskets of pretzels Commissioner Frank Bisignano sent to employees thanking them for their work. (The pretzel company is owned by Bisignano’s daughter, according to The New Yorker.)

“It’s just hard and disheartening when you hit 250 years and all you give your government employees is just more work and stress and pretzels,” she said.

‘They have money for everything else except to pay us’

Some Transportation Security Administration employees, who went without pay for weeks during a record-long partial government shutdown earlier this year, are feeling particularly bitter.

All the spending on the national events angers one supervisor at a Florida airport. Even though she received all her back pay, she is still dealing with fees and interest on bills she delayed paying during the shutdown.

“It’s like a slap in the face,” said the staffer, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. “They have money for everything else, except to pay us.”

Federal Independence Day events have played to Trump’s cultural tastes and given conservative groups a platform to shape the narrative around the celebrations — all to “renew national pride.” At Trump’s Great American State Fair, those in Washington will get to decide between riding the towering, 110 foot-Ferris wheel looming over the National Mall, visiting booths representing each state and territory, or taking a picture in front of a plywood and vinyl replica of Trump’s triumphal arch.

In the supervisor’s opinion, the Trump administration should use the funds it is spending on the celebrations to support food stamps, scientific research and other priorities. She has family and friends who rely on food stamps and have medical conditions that would benefit from more research to find cures.

Jonas, the FEMA program analyst, visited Washington, DC, for the first time during a deployment in 2017.

“I bought my mom a sweatshirt. I was like, I was so enthralled by it. I’m like, ‘Wow, this is amazing, I love this job, I found my calling and I’m helping people,’” he said.

But as he drove to the nation’s capital this summer to get his equipment from the FEMA headquarters after being rehired, he said didn’t recognize the city – or the Ferris wheel in the middle of it – remarking that it’s in “the shadow of its former glory.”

“It has changed the demeanor at the office, too,” he said. “My colleagues, they’re really trying to continue pushing forward, but it seems like it’s like a little harder each and every day.”

Another TSA worker is still smarting that he had to stand in food lines during the shutdown. The state fair on the National Mall and the UFC fights at the White House on the president’s birthday ring hollow to him.

“We keep the place running, and we get nothing for it,” the Texas-based TSA officer said, asking that his name not be used for fear of retaliation.

But the staffer plans to mark the occasion in his own way at the airport. He purchased commemorative holiday coins from an online shop to give to his colleagues so they know they are appreciated.

For some federal workers, that pride endures despite the upheaval. Still, for Edward, the last 18 months have made celebrating feel impossible.

This milestone Fourth of July, the celebrations will go on without the man who, as a gobsmacked boy, never wanted the fireworks to end.

CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn and Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.

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