German Bundestag, June 1, 2022, Plenarprotokoll 20/40, pp.
3931-3933.
Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and
gentlemen. Dear countrymen.
The German Bundestag has been called upon to pass the Federal
2022 budget. We deliberate this week on a new indebtedness in a dizzying [schwindelerregender] sum of
approximately 139 billion euros. The planned expenditures thereby grow to
nearly 500 billion euros.
Valued Herr Chancellor, when could you as head of government
of this Ampel coalition actually end
a work day with the conscience of having brought our country forward? For one
thing I need say: The responsibility for the desolate state of our country rightly weighs heavily on your
shoulders. As a former Federal Finance Minister and a Social Democrat, you and
your predecessors in office have paved the ground for an economic and financial
policy far from reality.
We experience here and today the economic and social decline
of Germany and its citizens. How is your reaction to that? Either the Chancellor
is not heard or seen, or one hears from a former Federal President that one can
also freeze for peace. Precisely that is unworthy, ladies and gentlemen, unworthy
in the face of the country for which you as Federal government have undertaken
responsibility, and before all unworthy in the face of the people who day by
day contribute to the creation of value in Germany and thereby to the
well-being of our society.
The CDU moreover does not fall short of you. Herr Merz, you
yourself have spoken on the ARD of an end of our prosperity for a given time. That
sounds to me as if the CDU had already given up on Germany and lost belief in
itself; for the Christian Democrats and also you, Herr Merz, have not brought
forward solutions. You have spoken not a word for the German citizens, not a
word for the taxpayers in this country.
Ladies and gentlemen, both of these politicians today bring
in their own harvest. Look about you in our country! You will foremost
acknowledge the results of a misguided policy of the last decades when you go
through our country. These step forward ever more strongly into the foreground
and no longer allow themselves to be hushed. For example, the split between the
structurally strong regions and the structurally weak regions still deepens. We
all know: For scarcely any Mittelstand
firm is it at all still attractive to establish itself long-term in a
structurally weak region. Here for years the German state has not fulfilled its
basic duty, that is to say: Construction and maintenance of infrastructure,
transportation networks of roads and railways, broadband construction,
healthcare and education are some of the cornerstones which simply must be
present. It is the duty of the governments in the States and in the Bund to
create the basic prerequisites so that also small and Mittelstand businesses and especially the trades [Handwerk] can exist.
What actually is your idea for Germany and the continent of
Europe in the next 20 years, valued Federal government? How will we live and
work after the so-called energy transition? How further does it go? In that regard,
you keep completely silent. With that ends the one-sided utopia of the Ampel coalition, ladies and gentlemen.
Which industries for example will still exist in Germany and which will we need
to develop? How will people in this country earn their money? Who in this
country will at all still work creating value? To these questions we already
for long hear no more words from you. With your politics, you drive only by
sight. And further: What shall we advise the succeeding generations? What would
you advise your children, which calling should they learn, to which studies
should they apply themselves? How do the job descriptions of the future
actually appear?
Do you still at all invest a thought in these important
inquiries? We and many German citizens in any case cannot presently recognize
it. Your policy, valued Federal government, completely abolishes Germany and
Europe as an independent economic and educational area secured for the future.
As if that is not enough, these Federal governments for
years seek to solve the structural problems with new public debts, naturally
also in this budget. As Alternative für Deutschland, we have steadily and
constantly been of the opinion that you are thereby steering our country into
an inflation. And also here we are to be right, ladies and gentlemen. For the
rising prices of the goods of daily needs and of fuel, the citizens have you to
thank. You should actually be ashamed to cover up the results of your deficient
policy with the cloak of the Ukraine war. You all here know that the money press
of the ECB for years runs at high speed so as to veil the abuses! Precisely
that is the principal reason: The money supply in Europe.
Now comes the agreed upon oil embargo. And that will weaken
us here in Europe. In the petroleum refineries of Schwedt and Leuna and
throughout the regions of economic power workplaces will be lost. For months,
this ideologically deluded Federal government persists in its standpoint. Even
so long, we bring to your attention real savings potentials. You nevertheless
are not all at interested in an honest audit. To compare revenues and
expenditures is not wanted.
In that regard, it would be possible that you save over 100
billion euros in the energy and climate funds by means of a reimbursement of
the asylum reserve or an orderly foreign and development policy in German
interests. And the EU bureaucracy monster is not allowed to be further
heedlessly fed. Were only a portion of these proposals taken into account, we
could relieve the state budget. Much more, these volumes of money would also be
free for the financing of the Bundeswehr – without taking up new debts and
without altering the Basic Law – or so as to invest in the chronically under-financed social security systems. We of course owe that to the citizens
who use a large part of their income for that each month and also thereby
maintain the social state.
Yet this Federal government reacts as usual thoughtfully and
initially announces a one-time relief packet. That of course sounds really
great and nice. Not only is it long awaited, it first of all serves as ideological
building blocks and attempts with a nine euro ticket to remove the citizens
during the summer months from their autos to public transportation [ÖPNV]. Again of course can only those
profit therefrom which still operate buses and trains. The infrastructurally
weak regions will again be uncoupled. Frau Haßelmann, you are welcome to come
to my constituency, Görlitz.
Britta Haßelmann (Greens): I was there already! Without informing you!
A weekly bus runs there. You can then go there for once for
nine euros. This is the reason: The people there have purely nothing to do with
this short-term symbol politics. They of course have designated for their own
provision their own autos.
Here especially it concerns as it happens the elders in our
country, those as it happens whom we have to thank for our prosperity. Those
who have built our country will, for thanks from the government, be humiliated
and forgotten.Yet just these people require our support, deserve our esteem; and
those people also have deserved relief.
Yes, the price spiral ever further turns. High fuel prices
will have as a consequence higher foodstuff prices. The production prices
already lie above the trade prices. Finally take hold of pragmatic solutions
which matter to the citizens and businesses! Set aside the value-added tax on
basic foodstuffs! Create a relief in the wage and income taxes by means of a
raise in the basic allowance! And yet again: The CO2 duty ought to
be abolished.
We ourselves here in the German Bundestag need to finally
expedite the election law reform. Had this parliament the appropriate number of
598 members, in place of 736, we could save 100 million euros annually. That would
contribute to the citizens’ trust in our parliamentary work and could even
positively affect the election participation. You apparently just do not want
this.
Vice-president Petra Pau: You please need come to a conclusion.
Last sentence, Frau President. – Valued colleagues, it can
and may not be a further so. We require a politics in which our citizens are
thought of first, just like Germany.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
