In April 1979, during a congressional hearing attended by Coretta Scott King and other witnesses in favor of establishing the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. as a national holiday, Thurmond stated that the Civil Service Commission had estimated that enacting the holiday would cost the government $22 million to cover pay for federal employees. Thurmond furthered that taxpayers would be forced to pay $195 million to accommodate the employees. Ted Kennedy responded to Thurmond by saying that the estimates were not factoring in the revenue that could be generated from sales on the proposed holiday.