Peter
Boehringer
General
Finance Debate
German
Bundestag, September 10, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/110, pp. 13534-13536
[Peter Boehringer is an
Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the southern German state of
Bavaria and is currently chairman of the Bundestag budget committee. He here
responds to the coalition government’s 2020 budget proposal.]
Herr President. Honorable colleagues.
We have heard it: “We can do it – Part 2”.
The government has presented and today presents no serious budget
planning. We are yet again far away from a complete and realistic outline of
the charges. The Finance Minister will in the next twelve months despair of
over-due paper, yet reckon up the appearance of budget solidity. Besides in
that regard, the present flow of tax revenue is the accomplishment of the
citizen and business, not the government.
Michael Grosse-Böhmer
(CDU-CSU): Absurd! It was always so!
What an insight!
Yet the cash accounts in 2020 will look otherwise. Just like the
coalition, many of the firms are meanwhile moaning. We are experiencing the
last summer days of tax revenue before the business cycle winter. The childish
policies against key German industries will for purely ideological reasons inflict
disaster upon the labor market and budget, even while the CO2 fees
initially irrigate the accounts with yet more money. The income side of the
budget is positively distorted by the historically unprecedented long-term
cyclical program of the [European] Central Bank. By this autumn, the European
Central Bank [EZB] will have again injected 200 billion euros of funny money [Luftgeld] into the system. With this
voodoo economics, the central banks are actually destroying all markets.
With zero interest credit, everything can be financed – at the
cost of the citizen, since this exceptional situation expropriates saver and
pensioner as even so the renter by the housing price bubble. The state saves
each year more than 100 billion euros, the citizens losing this amount. Without
this absolutely special effect, the budget would never be balanced.
Correctly reckoned, this rate savings ought to lead directly to
tax reduction. Instead, it is the flip side of the negative interest rates that
put a hit on the people’s old-age protection. The zero percent money policy is
a declaration of war on the citizen.
In fact, it is thereby that the wealth tax [Vermögensteuer], so warmly beloved by the SPD, is already again
introduced. Yet what does the Finance Ministry do? Not even the most obsolete
of taxes, the Soli, is to be abolished. By 2020, the Soli will already have no
more legal basis. The AfD, the scientific service, the Federal Budget
Authority, see it thusly. The Finance Ministry knows exactly that, yet nothing
official is permitted. Even the former leader of the Finance Ministry tax office
protests against the continued collection of the Soli, even so the taxpayers’ union.
There is already a budget liability of 20 billion euros; for the entire
planning period even 54 billion euros. Herr Minister, is this disregard of the
legal opinion of all these institutions serious? You are putting future
generations at risk of a disaster of billions.
Furthermore, it is a continuing obfuscation to speak of the –
quote – 90 percent no longer paying when when more than 50 percent of the Soli
revenue is retained. You actually abolish only half of the Soli, the remainder
is a rhetorical trick, nothing other. And even this 90 percent not paying is a
false assertion. Since the Soli payment out of the proceeds of the mulcted
savers is retained, it is in reality more than 10 percent of the taxpayers who
will continue to pay the Soli.
Then the climate theme. The Bundestag would be today, ja, the place to discuss the legendary
climate budget. Yet the government now lays before us a budget plan in which
the media rumored, giant CO2 portion is itself simply absent today
from the first reading. That is a parliamentary impertinence. And in so far as
a portion of it is already in the budget, we refer to a 100 million euro
payment to the EU for certifications presuming to make planned-economy
allocations of CO2, it is a completely ideological rip-off of the
citizen.
Themes of major risk. Quite a number are no longer found in the
budget. Again lacking, despite multiple demands, Herr Minister, the billions to
back up the euro rescue risks. The budget is already out of balance on that
account alone. Further we see the big bank rescue risks, in part indirectly
those of the EZB, yet thereby again also German risks. It threatens to break
the earlier promises of 2012: Never again bank rescue with tax money!
The compensation payments for the purely ideologically motivated
coal shut-down were initially - initially! – budgeted at 60 percent less than
promised. They were then under the pressure of the election campaign again
increased, but unfortunately not completely included in the finance plan. For 2020,
it is only 500 million euros. Definitely not budgeted are the likely successful
damage claims of the power plant employees. Very clean and efficient basic
power power plants will be forced off the grid for purely ideological reasons.
In terms of energy, environmental technology and economics, that is a grotesque
proceeding.
The legal consequences are clear: There will be billions in suits
over special write-offs and foregone business profits. The BMF [Federal Finance
Ministry] knows this risk from the nuclear power verdict of 2016. Yet it is not
included. After you, the deluge. Is that serious?
The risk of Germany’s EU payments: They are, beginning in 2021, in
the future calculated at 1 percent, although the government without necessity
has now already made much higher pledges to the EU. We thus also thereby figure
a deficit.
The risk of Brexit’s additional costs: Measured by the so far not
signed Brexit treaty, Britain has yet to pay 45 billion euros to the EU. At the
moment, there is nothing to be seen of it. During the present financial planning
period, a no deal Brexit will thus be for Germany some 12 billion euros, partly
beginning in 2020. And this is not provided for in the budget.
The risk of increased defense expenditures. A completely obscure
situation prevails here. The troops want much, NATO even more. The positions of
the Defense Minister and the Finance Minister however vary. There is no clarity.
The investments are, despite what they have plainly said, at less than 10
percent once again much too low. There is no real growth in 2020. That simply
does not agree. For broadband construction and the Digital Pact there is
absolutely nothing and the investment quota even decreases. Those are the
facts, Herr Minister, despite what you have plainly said.
No one speaks of the steadily increasing risk of an electrical
black-out, nor does it appear in the budget. Yet it increases permanently due
to the energy transformation [Wende].
The costs of migration for the social budget are also not be underestimated.
The cost basis increases. The compensation to states and localities will have
to be raised. That is an additional major risk in the planning. Today, each
indeed wants in some way to receive migrants, but no one wants to pay the bill.
That is self-righteous [gutmenschliche]
hypocrisy. The localities’ readiness to receive will be bought with tax money.
Good deeds at the cost of foreign people however have no moral worth.
The risk of an unconditional basic pension. It is in no way
planned for in the budget. An unadulterated flop.
Then there is a special risk. There is a media report according to
which 20 billion euros could flow to Iraq so that Isis murderers there will not
be too harshly condemned. The government does not indeed confirm this planning, yet the report’s underlying
paper clarifies nothing. 20 billion euros: That would be more than the combined
budgets for families, seniors, women and children, and development assistance –
just for a couple of Isis fighters in Iraq. I demand from the government an
explicit clarification of the origin of this report.
The coalition must finally trouble itself to use German money for
the German citizen. Truly middle-class [bürgerliche]
parties would do that. For all that, the tax money comes from these same
citizens and it is still too much. The Finance Minister in the fat years can
use up the illegitimately collected asylum reserve funds yet even these 30
billion euros will be gone by 2021.
I come to conclusion. After us, the deluge, as well as the
devastating mega-crises. That is the apparent plan of this so serious federal
government.
Hearty thanks.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
