Even if the proposal were to memorialize Thomas Jefferson with a national holiday, and not Martin Luther King Jr., one would be entitled to ask whether our economy, running at a huge deficit with the rest of the world, could afford it. Run your equations as you will, the result remains steep: a $2-trillion economy, two hundred work days, $10 billion “lost” per holiday, $4 billion tax revenues “lost.” It would make sense to substitute MLK Day for one already on the books, as Veterans’ Day pre-empted Armistice Day. One thinks immediately of Labor Day, whose name is an appeal to a dwindling faction, few of whose members share the messianic impulse of unionism’s founders. The concept of “the worker” as besieged by “the bosses” is pretty much old hat. Let’s face it: Labor Day is obsolete, like Armistice Day (which marked the end, in 1918, of the War to End All Wars). MLK Day would be far preferable on the first Monday in September, for undeniably one of Mr. King’s central achievements was to open the door to the marketplace for jobs.
Somehow, though, it rankles that we should be asked to take the day off to remember a man whose career was built on leisure (the GNP, after all, is not produced by people marching in the streets). Perhaps MLK Day should be celebrated only by the gainfully employed, and all those on welfare should be required to collect their checks as usual.
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