From the 2026 budget audit
Should the state run its own think-tank?
The Institute for National Strategy costs 914.7 million Ft in salaries alone — for research the government itself has already slated for closure.
Roughly 230 Ft per taxpayer per year in payroll — for a body the state's own restructuring list marks for elimination.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: a research institute producing analysis on Hungarian heritage and the Carpathian Basin. The unseen: the wage-earner whose tax funds research whose value no price signal can establish — and which a government committee has already decided is unnecessary.
Objection
"But we need national-strategic research — who else will do it?"
Answer
Universities, independent institutes, and the diplomatic service already produce foreign-policy and heritage analysis. The state cannot determine whether a dedicated budget line produces research worth its cost; the government's own bureaucracy-reduction programme reached the same conclusion. The transition protects staff with 24 months of bridged salary.
Share if you think state-run think-tanks should face the same scrutiny as any other budget line.
The analyst's verdict
Personnel Expenditures (Institute for National Strategy)
Rationale
The Institute conducts research, surveys and analysis on Hungarian heritage and the Hungarian communities of the Carpathian Basin. Whatever the merit of that research, it is not a rights-protection function, not a constitutional precondition, and not a protective response to involuntary harm. It is a state-funded think-tank — and a state cannot determine through a budget line the optimal quantity or direction of strategic research, because there is no price signal telling it whether the research is worth its cost. The Hungarian government itself has reached a structurally similar conclusion: the Institute is among the seventy-plus state bodies slated for elimination or restructuring, with its functions to be absorbed by the Veritas Institute.[^1] When the government's own bureaucracy-reduction programme already marks a body for closure, the classical-liberal recommendation is simply to follow through cleanly rather than fold it into a successor.
Transition mechanism
The protected party is the Institute's permanent staff — a small professional cohort (the personnel line is 914.7 millió Ft, employer contributions 148.6 millió Ft, so roughly a few dozen researchers and administrators on standard public-sector salaries). Severance-with-overlap over two years: staff retain full state salary for up to 24 months and may take private-sector or academic employment during that window, keeping both incomes. The bridge cost equals the payroll itself — 1,063.3 millió Ft across XI-E7 and XI-E8 — and is the only honoured component. The 292.9 millió Ft operating-cost line and the 31.7 millió Ft capital line carry no reliance interest of permanent employees; they hit zero in the first budget cycle. Researchers with analytical and language skills are among the most transferable of public-sector workers; the household path is private-sector or university re-employment well inside the 24-month window.
Affected groups
The Institute's permanent staff (a small cohort); contracted suppliers, whose contracts run off rather than being abrogated.
Free Society Institute
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