New Year's holiday on January 3, 2000?

It makes perfect sense to Reps. David Dreier (R-California) and John Linder (R-Georgia). Earlier this month, they introduced the "Y2K Proposal on Opening Day" bill to provide public and technology professionals with an extra day to fix last-minute glitches.

"If they [companies or government agencies] discover at midnight that something is not fixed, they've got Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to continue to work on it until business opens as usual on Tuesday," Linder said.

The holiday move, he said, would also save companies the burden of having to pay workers on holiday time.

While the idea is not a silver-bullet cure, Linder said the extra day might alleviate last minute fears. So far, Linder hasn't received opposition to the bill and expects it to pass.

The President's Council on Y2K also is looking into a similar proposal. Over the next several weeks, it expects to receive recommendations from a task force to determine whether the holiday move would be useful, or perhaps cause even more problems.

"It's unclear whether such a move would be entirely beneficial, especially within the financial services sector," the counci's Jack Gribben said. "There's a significant amount of reprogramming that would have to be done if one were to change or add a holiday which might be an added burden to those who are already working hard to ensure that systems are ready for the year 2000."

If approved, the government's plan would give Americans an additional day off to deal with unexpected problems.