The Case for Privatizing the Ministry of Silly Walks

I have previously written about the value of privatizing public library systems and now wish to address the fleecing of American taxpayers for the sake of another wasteful and ineffective government bureaucracy: the Ministry of Silly Walks.

Background
The Ministry of Silly Walks was preceded initially by the Office of Ambulatory Research within the Department of War in 1942. At the time, there was strong national support for any government program that was labeled as "war effort." Furthermore, it was not without reason that the Roosevelt Administration funded such studies, given the breakthroughs of Nazi scientists in the field at the time.

With the close of the war, there was little justification for maintaining silly walk research. Still, out of concern for the employment of silly walkers, the bloated socialist New Deal establishment, with pecuniary persuasion by the powerful Walking Lobby of K Street, arranged for the continued funding and transfer of the Office to the Commerce Department under Secretary Averell Harriman.

There it remained until the Johnson Administration, when the President packaged an expansion of silly walk funding with the Great Society program. Under LBJ, large grants for individual silly walk research were offered to African-Americans in the South, thereby granting future promoters of the research the opportunity to tar critics as racist. Although funding is now spread with far greater racial diversity, the Civil Rights Era overtones of this period still influence debate over the Ministry of Silly Walks.

With President Johnson's move of the Ministry to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1964, and the subsequent split of that executive department in 1980, the Ministry of Silly Walks (MSW) found its final home in the Department of Health and Human Services, where it has been leeching off American taxpayers ever since.

Current Waste
When Bill Clinton left office in 2001, the Ministry of Silly Walks enjoyed an annual budget of $1.1 billion. Despite promises from the Bush Administration in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns to curtail this expenditure, the Ministry of Silly Walks is projected to consume $1.4 billion in FY '06.

Fully 32% of this amount is consumed in overhead expenses at the Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Building in Washington, whose 182,000 square feet of floor space are devoured by MSW employees. Laboratories inside and off-campus pour tens of millions of dollars into extensive ambulatory research. Otherwise unemployed and unemployable Ph.Ds in Silly Walk Studies burn away taxpayer dollars on their work in this massive building.

The Ministry also grants large -- often seven-figure -- grants to individuals seeking to develop their silly walks. Although this may seem like a productive use of federal funds, traditionally, grants are distributed at the behest of the incumbent President and other power brokers in Washington as payment for campaign contributions or special favors. The Ministry of Silly Walks, consequently, engages in little productive ambulatory research, but instead serves as a feeding trough for the patrons of Washington politicians.

The Solution
It shouldn't come as a surprise that private contributions to silly walk research institutions, such as the National Foundation for Silly Walk Research (NFSWR) totaled under $32 million last year. Whatever need for ambulatory studies exists is apparently minimal, as a Cato study revealed last year that fully 62% of all Americans self-identifying as silly walkers are either employees or grantees of the Ministry of Silly Walks.

The comparative cost silly walk development further reveals the utility of the Ministry of Silly Walks. In 2005, the average silly walker reached advanced development for the cost of $287,430 at the MSW. At the privately-supported NFSWR, however, this same goal was achieved with an average expenditure of $73,908 per silly walk.

The MSW therefore appears to exist to serve the needs of its employees to remain employed and flush with research funding. Such is not a legitimate function of government, nor of the robbing of taxpayers to support the silly walks of others who have the capacity to develop them with their own funds. What true silly walk hardship cases do exist can be readily supplied with the budget of the NFSWR and other ambulatory research organizations -- and all without compelling the funding of American citizens against their will.

Privatization should be a fairly simple process. Legislation to terminate this Ministry should grant full funding to current recipients for one year so that they have time to find alternate sources of income. The properties of the MSW should then be sold at public auction, and hopefully its main building can be replaced with a more useful establishment generating income without burdening taxpayers.

UPDATE: Welcome Inoperable Terran readers! Go slap yourselves with fish!