NFL-sponsored military salutes at the start or during the middle of football games are fun, feel-good reminders to support our troops. Whether a Marine-turned-cheerleader reunites with her Marine husband or an enormous flag unfurls over the stadium, these salutes end up being a great way to turn up the energy and entertain the crowd.

However, the NFL may stop doing them if Congress passes its latest defense spending bill. Those salutes don’t come free–they are actually paid for by the Department of Defense, which has spent more than $6 million over the past four football seasons to orchestrate them.

With a tightening budget, Congress seeks to stop the DoD from allocating funds towards sports-themed ads with language snuck into the spending bill for the 2016 fiscal year.

“At a time of crippling budget cuts under sequestration, the Defense Department can’t afford to waste its limited resources for the benefit of sports leagues that rake in billions of dollars a year,” Sen. John McCain said on the Senate floor.

Rep. Jeff Flake agreed with McCain, adding that the DoD’s practice to pay sports teams to honor the troops is shallow. ““When some teams are accepting money to do what has been termed ‘paid-for-patriotism,’ then it cheapens all the other good work that is done by these sports teams and others,” he said.

The reason NFL salutes are important to the DoD is because they are an easy way to honor the troops and advertise the military to the masses. The department also has deals with the MLB, the NBA, the NHL, MLS, NASCAR, and NCAA schools. Without Congressional support, all patriotic half-time shows in these leagues will taper off.