Peter Boehringer, March 25, 2022, Budget

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/26, pp. 2212-2213.

Frau President.

Over the entire budget week hovers the new Lauterbach dictum: “We will from now on always be in a state of exception”. In just one fiscal year were 10 billion euros expended for Corona tests and even still more for vaccinations with mRNA vaccines which in no way reduce mass infections; presently there are a good 150,000 people and infections each day. Can the reason for this be that the Health Minister’s public relations advertising budget has been expressed forty-fold? Only a bad product needs be marketed at such expense or indeed imposed by force. Had we a good vaccine against a truly dangerous virus, there would be a black market for a vaccine and no law for a vaccination mandate.   

The Bundestag is besides ever further disempowered by means of supplementary budgets. The “Bundeswehr special fund” becomes where possible technically the blue print for positions in the billions which in the future are “in addition to the debt brake”. That was a citation of the Finance Minister which in effect means: They are in addition to the Federal budget.

Thus also can 200 billion euros be simply promised for the climate by means of a climate and transformation special fund which already disposes of very high reserves; and despite that shall now receive still more billions of euros in new allotments at the pump. The climate fund can then for years expend, without regard to the debt brake, some 40 billion euros per year; that is more than one-tenth of the Federal budget. 40 billion euros corresponds to 205 work-hours – thus an entire month each year – which every income tax payer will need to feed to Moloch so as to generate the means for the so-called energy transition – and that is still not yet the entire compulsory service. Lunacy!

The “Bundeswehr special fund” similarly brings, budget-like, – I emphasize budget-like – many dam breaks.  It would naturally be correct to routinely put into the core budget all defense expenditures corresponding to the principle of per annum. Nevertheless, in the outline put forward for the Bundeswehr Special Fund Act is – cite:

An estimate of expenditures in the Federal budget is, on account… of the multi-year implementation time frame, not sensible.

Now, very many budget projects are of more than one year. Our instrumentation includes precisely the tools for obligations authorizations of more than one year and the transferability of means to the following year. And thus without special funds.

Then is to be mentioned the unprecedented hedge for altering the Basic Law. Unprecedented, never before done! A budgetary position only alterable by a future Bundestag with a two-thirds majority is to my thinking constitutionally highly questionable.

Shall this now become the model for new exceptional situations: Other wars, additional pandemics, new once-in-a-century challenges, further existential changes of the times, additional supplementary budgets from now on recurring yearly? The core budget then reflects only a part of the reality. Precisely there is where we are running.

The special fund even receives its own credit authority. That is a regression to the time prior to the debt brake; thus, 2009 and earlier. Lacking an amortization plan, the amortization of the special fund takes place on Never-never Day. Let us briefly recall at this point the FDP motion 19/10616 with the title “Strengthen the Debt Brake…”:

There must in the future be defined an amortization plan binding for the duration of a business cycle…and for emergency extra debts.

Tempi passati. – Long ago times for the FDP.

And then let us recall the EU-ropean supplementary budget “Next Generation EU” which in 2021 was established under the pretext of “Corona”. Already now in 2022 shall come the next EU debts fund, this time allegedly for covering the consequences of the war. Thus only one year later already the next, onetime, temporary EU community debts program. Draghi even gave  the baby a name: “Resilience Fund” it shall be called.

I said here in house on February 25, 2021 – it was actually almost prophetic:

Formally, with the “Next Generation EU”, the Bundestag is made a participant in a so-called limited single authorization…Such a single authorization is

– at 800 billion euros –

           a bad joke and a dam break. If once this dam is broken, then will Brussels                               ever again take up giant, limited, single sums at the cost of German credit                               worthiness and grandiosely distribute them  to southern Europe and France.                           Today's proposal places at disposal the Bundestag's budget right according                           to Article 110 of the Basic Law.        

– My words of a year ago. We now stand precisely there again, just one year later.

In that regard, the day before yesterday arrived this report: The heads of state and of government of the EU member states want to get underway this week an additional reconstruction fund – the Bundestag learns of all that from the newspapers! The Federal government gave us in committee no information, although EU Council President Michelin in that regard stated – cite:

            The views of the EU member states on the funds differ not in the least.

Thus, not even those of the German Finance Minister. Here, all alarm clocks shrill! Since what Michel, Macron and Draghi want is well known; all know it, only the German Bundestag should still not know. The Germans shall be there only to underwrite and to pay in the billions. We shall be led by stealth under pretext of an emergency into the illegal transfer and liability union.

Thus in fact will be founded a European sovereignty – what here meanwhile is quite openly expressed – which however means by definition an abolition of the German sovereignty

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Unconstitutional!

and thereby clearly is unconstitutional.

Our undertaking in that regard runs: – I come to a conclusion – Just as with a budget emergency as well as with the vaccination mandate on the basis of a long-term pandemic state of exception à la Lauterbach, we hold with Willy Brandt:

Who…would play with the state of emergency so as to restrict freedom will find my friends and I at the barricades

– for the defense –

            of democracy.

And: It was long ago, SPD!

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

Tino Chrupalla, March 23, 2022, Budget – II

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/24, pp. 1930-1932.

The debate on energy security lies before us on the table. It deals with the basic supply for our citizens and our economy. Herr Habeck, do you actually know how long it takes to put into operation heavy machinery or also power plants? For if you did know that, you would deal quite differently with the real danger of a blackout. And here again, the ideological delusion in so politically and economically important a debate! You know: Alternative sources of energy are plainly not capable of the base load. A debate on gas and nuclear power plants in this connection is long since overdue; and it is absent.

The structural change in the eastern Federal States will in any event not secure prosperity, security and an economic circumstance in which young generations in particular can settle. Not to mention that the premature withdrawal from the last fossil energy source in Germany, the brown coal, needs now to be reviewed. I say quite well aware: Yes, it is important to speak of the protection of nature. Yet the well-being of people must here have priority. I repeat: We are speaking here of the basic supply, and a state must guarantee that.

Just so a duty of the state is the theme of “domestic security”. Voices will now proclaim war refugees should be distributed in the Federal States in the east because fewer people live there. I heard all of that already in 2015. And here again, the second before the first step will be made. We first need to know – and it comes to this, Frau Faeser – who then actually arrives in our country?  

            Lars Klingbeil (SPD): Women and children!

These people need to be registered. In no other country on Earth with its 192 states can one simply enter without being registered or controlled. In Germany, that is possible. Can you thus – the question needs be put – generally guarantee the security of the war refugees and also that of other citizens in Germany ? This policy, Herr Scholz, has plainly not been thought out to the end.

Ladies and gentlemen, under all circumstances, we need to prevent that trouble spots [Konflicktherde] infringe upon Germany. Yes, we have war in Europe. Yet we do not find ourselves at war with any state and it should remain so. We also may not allow ourselves to be drawn into a third world war, not by means of words and not by means of promises; as for example, of weapons deliveries to the war zone of the Ukraine.

Valued Federal government, do not continually escalate! Neither 500 million euros nor 1 billion euros will stop the war in the Ukraine. Much more by means of this misguided policy will blood stick to the hands of German citizens. That must not be! A Federal government led by Social Democrats at least indirectly rattles the sabre in Europe, and after four months has scarcely more to offer its citizens than inflation, new debts and social impoverishment. Herr Chancellor, our children and grandchildren will need to compensate for that their entire lives.

Allow me in this connection to go into the financial planning of the Bundeswehr. For years, what was the defense budget actually used for? This question needs now be put in regards this debate. Here, of course, is managed only the shortage which the last three Defense Ministers identified.

Herr Merz, I need really say to your speech to which I have just now listened: What you have said of the Bundeswehr is almost cabaret. You were indeed not there for 13 years, but perhaps you should sit at the table with Frau von der Leyen and ask for what was the money actually expended. The money was thrown out the window for consultants contracts. The CDU is also responsible for that.

Valued colleagues, the Bundeswehr belongs to Germany. We require a defense army which is well outfitted with equipment as well as with personnel. To be sure, it should really be asked, why just now is the debate conducted with so much energy? One thing is certain: Even the heedless sum of 100 billion euros will not within a brief time improve the situation. New and modern weapons systems require first of all one thing: People who can operate them. What should the new Bundeswehr actually look like in terms of personnel?  

            Irene Mihalic (Greens): Naturally not as you imagine it!

That needs to be discussed before one speaks of additional costs and additional sums. Will the new generations actually be able to, and before all want to, defend their fatherland? In this regard, allow me to say something personal: I have three children, two of them sons. I ask you – you also have children and grandchildren: Would you entrust your children, Herr Lauterbach, Defense Minister Lambrecht, Frau Baerbock, Herr Lindner, Herr Habeck and Herr Scholz, to this Federal government? You, yes; I can imagine it. I not. I would – this I also quite honestly say – not entrust my children to Herr Merz. For with Herr Merz as Chancellor, we would already be in a third world war. Here – and of this we also need to speak in the Bundestag – it is about identity, about German virtues, about honesty, diligence and order, which future generations require; and before all things about love of fatherland. This needs to be secured; for mentalities do not allow themselves to change by chance at the press of a button.

Please do not misunderstand me: I also would be happy if by talk alone conflicts were resolved. I think that the time of diplomacy has just begun. Therefore, let us send diplomats instead of weapons; since only so is peace made.  

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]