WASHINGTON — Quick quiz: What is George Washington’s birthday?
The official U.S. government answer is the third Monday in February, the day you can get a car or a mattress on sale.
Lawmakers and witnesses at a House hearing Wednesday favored giving the first president his birthday back. They agreed that the federal holiday should be restored to Washington’s real birthday of Feb. 22.
Through 1970, most Americans knew Washington’s birthday because that was the holiday. The nation’s holiday lineup was changed by a 1968 law that took effect in 1971, making Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Presidents Day all Monday holidays to give Americans three-day weekends.
The Senate Judiciary Committee report on the changes said the holidays would provide “substantial benefits to both the spiritual and economic life of the nation.”
Well, the economic part proved to be true.
“We need to change the focus from celebrating sales at the mall to celebrating the significance of President Washington’s birth to the birth of our nation,” said Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., sponsor of a bill to change the holiday to Feb. 22.
He was backed at the hearing by lawmakers of both parties, a historian, an educator and a member of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, which cares for Washington’s historic Virginia home.
