Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, September 27, 2024, Pensions and Children

German Bundestag, September 27, 2024, Plenarprotokoll 20/189, pp. 24585-24586. 

Frau President. Dear colleagues. Honorable citizens. 

In the Middle Ages, it was common to attempt to heal the sick by draining them of blood by the liter – the sicker, the more and the more often. That, for most, did not turn out well. At some time, one became smarter and abandoned that. Gott sei Dank! 

Yet the Federal government still today thinks of stabilizing the statutory pension by operating on one artery after another. I do not now speak by way of exception of non-insurance benefits, but of the irregular and multiple cutting of the Federal added subsidy within three years until 2027 of a total 10 billion euros. These lopped-off billions will not be invested in, for example, a Generations Capital, but they are simply gone, disappeared into the depths of the Federal government’s budget holes – money which is lacking for the Pension Insurance. 

And thus these cuts lead to that the Pension Insurance’s reserves empty much earlier, and for that the contribution increases earlier and further than planned. The German Pension Insurance Union figures into the reckoning contribution rates of 22.4 percent up to 2040. It is not mentioned that it remains there. The basic reason for that is the limit line for the pension level, which was called up by the SPD only so long as to maintain the shaky construction until the Ampel is history, and a new government of shambles may sweep up. 

In this situation, the government tinkers with a so-called Generations Capital at the pump – beyond the debt brake and with the corresponding subsequent costs. The Federal Audit Authority has calculated that the yield from this Generations Capital can bring by 2039 a relief of the contribution of, believe it or not, 0.4 percentage points, if at all. The German Pension Insurance is rightly concerned that this more likely may not come; which is to say, contribution payments to the account for that will also be ordered. With an authentically funded support for old age insurance, as in, for example, Finland, Canada, Japan or Sweden, this Generations Capital has nothing to do. 

Ja, but why then is it done? Because Herr Scholz has so decided and Herr Lindner so far does not contradict, 

            Hermann Gröhe (CDU/CSU): Where is he, actually?

even when this does not suit colleague Vogel. And precisely that, I do not understand. His colleague Mordhorst said quite openly – cite: “The SPD lies in the face of pensioners and workers.” The Federal Budget Authority expresses it somewhat more finely and figures the added expenditures for the pension package until 2045 at, believe it or not, 507 billion euros, paid by the young people and those yet to be born. 

            Markus Kurth (Greens): But distributed over 20 years!

It is now well established that these generations will not at the outset receive from the pension account what they may pay in; in any event, that the increasing contribution for each employee will soon amount to nearly a year’s vacation. The question is whether these generations can then still at all afford a vacation. 

All of that, dear colleagues, needs not be. It is possible to stabilize the pension system, long-term and prudently. I am thus glad to here today bring in our motion [Drucksache 20/11847] with the title “For a Secure Pension for Our Children”, which does precisely that: Secures the pension long-term, and in fact quite without new debts. 

That will be possible by means of a goal-oriented savings plan for which the state pays in monthly 100 euros for every child of a German citizen, born here and living here permanently up to the age of 18. What is gathered there shall then be administered by a community foundation [Gemenschaftsstiftung]. As a result of the long time period and the compound interest effect, it is possible, with a very reasonable commitment, to save up real wealth specific to a person. We are speaking here of a total 21,600 euros per child, stretched as was said over 18 years. That yields, with a return on capital of four percent, around 214,000 euros. Dear colleagues, that is a generations capital – sensible, feasible and affordable. 

Many thanks.

[trans:tem]

 

Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, April 23, 2024, Pensions and the FDP

AfD Kompakt, April 23, 2024. 

That the reduction-free pension at 63 was an expensive election gift of the SPD to its – it needs be said, former – core voters is clear. Nevertheless, the problem is presently in abeyance, since alone the age limit is already continually pushed higher; for those born after 1964, to 65 years. What is overlooked by the entirety of these calculations: The focus on the fixed age limit is no longer suitable for today’s real life of employees. 

We of the AfD delegation demand more freedom and self-determination in regards pension entry. And to that pertains: 45 contribution years are enough. Who has collected this should also without a reduction be pensioned, which can but need not be at 63. To that extent, there is nothing “to abolish”. Only one thing is certain. No one should need to work longer than to 67 years. 

Concerning pensions, the FDP has never distinguished itself with especially original proposals which go beyond “we all need to work much longer”. To a pension reform belongs a socio-political concept and a solid financing. For both, the FDP has nothing to offer, which is seen in the fully under-financed “equities pension” [Aktienrente]. What the FDP now contributes to the pension at 63 is just more wind. “12 Point Plan”, that sounds snappy, only the question is: What has the FDP actually done in the last three years?

[trans: tem]

Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, February 1, 2024, Scholz Government and Pensions

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/151, pp. 19276-19277. 

Frau President. Dear colleagues. Honored citizens. 

Germany is being passed down [Deutschland wird nach unten durchgereicht]: The economy shrinks, the bankruptcy wave rolls, and achievers in droves leave the country. The infrastructure collapses, the healthcare system is exhausted – to say nothing of the education system. 

That is the balance of a government which, quite alone, wants to save the world and the climate, and, for that and quite without necessity, destroys the foundations of existence of an industrial nation, which pumps billions into Bürgergeld, yet leaves nothing over for the employees, which sinks untold sums for ideological nonsense and, for that, is ready to squeeze the people to the last cent. 

How can that be? “Champagne for all!”, that was the Ampel’s deal: Children’s basic security for the SPD, climate fuss for the Greens, and “no tax increases” for the FDP. It could have been so nice. Instead, last year came the reckoning: Everything which the Ampel, it needs be said, has tricked together – none of it was constitutional. And even the budget, of which we here today speak, stands on shaky footing. 

Now, at the latest, it would be to announce a change of course, to say nothing of saving. Saving: That means – for those who do not know – to spend less money there where it need not be, so as to have it where it will be needed. 

            Takis Mehmet Ali (SPD): Yes, where then?

You unfortunately do the opposite. You raise the taxes on CO₂ and benzine, you raise the trucking fee, and you raise the taxes for the restaurant trade. 

            Takis Mehmet Ali (SPD): Yet you just said we should save!

You take the farmers hostage and beyond that demand still higher taxes for meat. Then it is only for the rich. What a glorious idea! 

And what you promised as a relief for the citizens – construction help, heating help, climate money – that slips away. There never was the money for that. 

Yet – und das ist gut so – the citizens begin to understand. The money is certainly not gone, it is just elsewhere. Suddenly, there is talk in the streets of bike paths in Peru, of gender projects in Colombia, of development aid for China. We pay for the pensions for other EU countries – countries in which the per capita assets are far above ours. 

Before all, however, we pay untold sums for a failed energy transition which massively overcharges the budget and our social accounts, and which will burden us for generations. 

Perhaps look for once at the studies from Holland and Denmark, or at least what Herr Raffelhüschen has written. 

            Claudia Raffelhüschen (FDP): Oah!

The results are unequivocal: The costs of migration are ruining our social state. What follows from that is clear: Still more rapidly rising contributions for pensions, health and care – and still fewer benefits for those who are to provide for all of this with their work. That is the new reality in Germany: As it happens, for those who finance the whole thing with their tax money, there remains scarcely anything. This is unique in Europe. 

            Martin Rosemann (SPD): All dumb stuff!

This is the reason why in Germany no normal earner can still afford a house, or in old age, the  care home. 

You can, Minister Heil, still so often emphasize, “Work makes the difference” – the people know better. That ultimately is also an origin of the rising costs in Bürgergeld. 

It is directly therefore an original sin that the Ampel in its greed wants to further avail itself of the employees’ money. 

            Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): That is just nonsense, what you are telling here!

With threadbare reasoning, you already had the finger in the till of the Federal Agency for Labor. That, after the last hearing, Gott sei dank, you have no longer dared – not nearly from insight, but alone out of fear of the next constitutional slap. 

Instead, you continue to plunder the statutory pensions, those additional allowances guaranteed by statute which you cut without further ado up to 2027 by a total of around 6.8 billion euros. 

For your next great project, the equities pension [Akteinrente], in which you are so proud, here are a couple of numbers: When, for that, you borrow 12 billion euros as a one-time credit and stick it in a fund, when do you think you would you at least restore the eliminated 6.8 billion euros? In the year 2050. And when you each year borrow 12 billion on credit and continually deposit it in a fund, the 6.8 billion is in back there until the year 2032 – besides the payments of up to 108 billion. 

Unfortunately, that does not at all help the Pension Insurance; since the sustainability reserve will be exhausted by 2026 as a result of your present cutbacks. Yet what do numbers matter when the government now needs money? And that shows what employees and pensioners are worth to the government. 

This development is dangerous. 

When the people no longer have the feeling that their work pays, when they no longer have the feeling that the government keeps its promises, then you lay the axe to the foundation of our society. Therefore I say today: Learn from the disaster which you have let loose with false incentives for the Bürgergeld, do not abuse the citizens’ income and assets for your wrong way, and turn back to the ground of reality! 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, September 5, 2023, Family Ministry

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/117, 14461-14462. 

Right honorable Frau Minister. Ladies and gentlemen. 

As first section of the sectoral ministries, we discuss this year the Family Ministry budget. I wished that the serial order would also reflect the government’s setting of priorities. Yet that unfortunately indeed remains just a wish. 

We have now already heard it many times. The big theme in this year are the savings guidelines and primarily your decision to cut, as it happens, the parental allowance [Elterngeld]. You and your colleagues from the red and green delegations then gladly refer to the guidelines from the Finance Ministry, and then all of you in the Ampel openly blame one another for this decision; we have today already heard it. The citizens, or in this case the parents, as always pay the bill. 

Frau Minister, you have the departmental responsibility for your Ministry and your budget. You alone thus bear the responsibility for which places will be cut. 

Here I would gladly remind you that you are the Family Minister. The word “Family” is not there for nothing and not for nothing in the first position. Why do I say this? Because apparently at the budget deliberations within your  government you indeed have not represented the interests of the the families, but rather the particular interests of your green colleagues and the interests of your ideological friends in diverse, so-called non-governmental organizations and networks with queer, gender or whatever ideologies. Say it: The families needed once again to be neglected. 

Frau Minister, as it happens, to save in regards Elterngeld is the last thing that would occur to me as the AfD delegation’s budget member. There is still plenty in the expenditures in your Ministry where one can save – we ever again pointed it out to you and your coalition with our motions to amend in the past. One need only correctly set the priorities. 

I want however to direct the attention to additional places in your budget draft. There are additional areas where you have regularly cut, namely in regards the child and youth policy around a full 220 million euros, and in regards the volunteer services around a total of 75 million euros. Also, the cutting in the area of the future package for exercise, culture and health of around 95 percent – that is, almost to zero – we regard most critically. 

There prevails a near unanimity among experts who say that the Corona preventive measures have inflicted an essentially greater harm on the children than has been admitted, especially as it concerns their sports performance. Meanwhile, only 12 percent of children are categorized as “fit” – 12 percent! To just now save in regards one of the most important programs which should counteract this, or indeed to let the program run out completely, that is a fully false signal. 

Where you have once again effected no savings measures is in regards the entire NGO network, as by chance in the program “Demokratie leben!”. Here, 200 million euros continue to flow unhindered to dubious organizations and associations which, among other things, preach Islamic fundamentalism or indoctrinate children with gender ideology. 

You also have not saved in regards the promotion of the youth organizations of political parties. That means, all parties here represented – with the exception of one, naturally – get additional tax money for their “non-political” work. 

And naturally was nothing saved in regards the so-called anti-discrimination commissioner. Frau Ataman is allowed in these times to lay hold of a budget multiplied nearly three times since 2020, 

            Felix Döring (SPD): That’s not right! There is less there! Have you at all read                        the draft?

And I am sure that you, as in the previous budget deliberations, will extend even more money. For you see overall discrimination, and the more discrimination you discover, the more money you of course require to fight against it. 

            Felix Döring (SPD): Das sind Falschnachrichten! 

            Sönke Rix (SPD): Fake news!

Many questions arise in regards the child basic security. The world is haunted by quite different numbers. Of late was there talk of 2.4 billion euros – not from next year, but first from 2025. On the website of your Ministry, the most comprehensive social reform in years and the mounting of a real fight against poverty will be spoken of. It should thus become the big push. 

Yet if one now considers that the Kindergeld presently costs around 50 billion euros per year, and in regards the child basic security we are speaking of 2.4 billion euros, that does not sound so big a push. 

            Leni Breymaier (SPD): Yawn! Yawn!

The raise will not even cushion the inflation, to say nothing of creating an increase for the families. Even if you figure in an additional rise in the Bürgergeld [citizens’ wage] for children from 2025, the numbers do not suit the basic security which you so proudly present. Yet on that we will deliberate in the next budget, not in this one. 

In conclusion, we can say of this budget plan: We of the AfD delegation see a considerable need for correction in regards the draft budget of your Ministry, and of course nevertheless look forward to the budget deliberations. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): To be sure! 

I am grateful.

 

[trans: tem]

Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, May 25, 2023, Low Wages and Small Business

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/106, p. 12834.

Right honorable Frau President. Dear colleagues. Honored citizens.

We have quite often heard it today: Employees, who have the good fortune to be paid according to scale in a business with a works council at its disposal and where there is a an employee representation worthy of the name, have not only higher incomes but in general also essentially better working conditions. Wage dumping and precarious work conditions are found especially where there is simply no representation of interests which can strengthen employee rights, So far, so good.

Yes, we of the AfD wish that as many employees as possible profit from the advantages of having a voice, and to that also plainly belong binding wage contracts. Higher wages – that is long since no more a luxury but a sheer necessity. In a country where so many citizens can no more afford daily living, in which the state squeezes the citizens with so many taxes and contributions that for many it would be more profitable to stay home with a citizen’s wage [Bürgergeld],

            Annika Klose (SPD): Ach, rubbish!

it is quite especially important that work be appropriately respected; that is to say, honored.

For too long was our country a low wage country. What we now complain of as old age poverty, and will still suffer in the future, is also the result of an abusive form of a precarious low wage sector. A third of those employed full-time today will receive a pension of not even 1,200 euros, but less – for 45 years full-time, as is well known. That is a scandal.

Here, good wage scale parameters [tarifliche Rahmenbedingungen] help and therefore we of the AfD are also for the promotion of these.

Yet what surely does not work is to write your ideal into a motion and then to believe it works out in the implementation. That is wishful thinking. And what happens when a socialist dream meets reality can you certainly experience in the heating transition debacle of your green comrades.

For us in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern soon threatens the care collapse – because ambulatory care service was recently placed under the wage contracts law and soon its employees can simply no longer perform. That is the reason why the first Federal states again already say goodbye to their own wage contracts laws – must say goodbye. That means: Please, some more honesty! And so it appears that we find ourselves in a crisis, and that we have many small businesses which only with difficulty can keep themselves above water. Those employed and the businesses would thereby be better served if their work was not daily hindered.

A Left party which gets chummy in the climate chaos so to win recruits, and on its website brags

            Pascal Meiser (Linke): Remain with the motion! Or have you again not read it?

of going into the street with the youth climate movement, is part of the problem and not the solution. Here then the pious wish for a collective agreement is of no additional help.

Many thanks.

            Pascal Meiser (Linke): You’ve sniffed too much adhesive!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, November 22, 2022, Family Ministry and Lobbyists

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/68, p. 7940.

Herr President. Dear colleagues. Honorable citizens.

We stand at the beginning of a recession. While savings measures will be spoken of, the people called upon to save and millions of families are on the edge of despair, money for unnecessary prestige projects will be expended, lobby associations taken into consideration and spared for false purposes. The Family Ministry budget is exemplary of this. It sets false priorities and is thoroughly soaked in green ideology.

For false priorities, the “Language Day Care” program – cost factor: 250 million euros per year – is the best example. This program is the life’s blood of many day cares. Over 7,000 professionals are thereby financed nationwide so as to promote the language development of the children. The latest studies indicate to us how important this is, whereby early childhood language education fell to an unheard level thanks to the Corona preventive measures.

And what do you do as nearly the first official act? In the Family Ministry this program was eliminated. Following a great wave of protest, the Ministry now comes about and yet again 109 million euros is posited for use in the interval – that is, until June 2023 – money which otherwise was erroneously provided with a stop notation.

Two billion euros were grandiosely announced for the new Good Day Care Law which is now called the “Day Care Quality Law”. That however is a potent smoke screen. There has of course flowed just zero cents more so far by means of this Good Day Care Law.

Where you cut, once again completely lacking transparency, is for example in the investment programs for the child care financing. In the years 2020 and 2021, there was still foreseen one billion euros. Were thus a balance sum for the day care promotion reckoned, the account would appear as follows: Minus 230 million euros for the Federal programs, inclusive of the language day care, minus 500 million euros for the investment programs. For 2023, that makes a minus of 750 million euros which is omitted nationwide. That is inconceivable for a Family Minister.

Yet you plainly set your priorities differently; since, ja, there must be money for your lobbyist colleagues and for the green ideology agenda of your ministry. For the so-called measures for strengthening variety and tolerance, 200 million euros are again foreseen. That thereby organizations with a direct connection in the Moslem Brotherhood will also be promoted – all the same.

For your lobbyist colleagues there is an abundance of money. That is best seen in regards the anti-discrimination commissioner, Frau Ataman.

            Leni Breymaier (SPD): Good woman!

Her office, completely detached from any responsibility, next year receives 13.4 million euros. That is fully 250 percent more than in 2021. So as to raise the money for that moreover, the women’s homes were cut.

            Denise Loop (Greens): That is not right!

If I may then continue in the list: There are again 10 million euros for the political party youth organizations. In clear text: A gift of the taxpayers to the political organizations like Grüne Jugend, Jusos, Linkes Jugend and Co.. 10 million euros for welfare associations for the “Counseling of Refugees”. I can here will imagine that soon with this next motion, the citizens’ money is imparted for “counseling” – and, and, and.

The crowning of the whole was nevertheless seriously the coalition’s motion in the settlement sitting of two weeks ago. Without shame, you have actually explicitly given money to specified firms. There were the yearly payment to the PHINEO AG of 350,000 euros or the 1.34 million euros for LGBTQ projects – the most of which, 850,000 euros, explicitly for Pinkdot.

Normally, duties and goals for a ministry’s budget are defined, then money placed at disposal and the attendant guidelines written out, to which the firms can then apply. Yet it is thus very burdensome and costly. It is just much more convenient to name an actual firm and to write it in the budget.

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Unbelievable!

The entire bureaucracy thus saves. It is only about a trifling 1.2 million euros. Who should be troubled by that? That is cronyism par excellence.

While the people will be called upon to save, while debts are made as if there was no tomorrow, here without shame money will be distributed to lobbyist associations. That is impudent. And it is incomprehensible why the FDP participates in all this nonsense.

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): I well understand it: Lust for positions.

 We of the AfD in any case will not share in this title and this budget – not as long as ideology and lobbyism are placed above the needs of the families in this country.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]