Joana Cotar, August 10, 2019, State-financed Digital Cloud

Joana Cotar

State-financed Digital Cloud

AfD Kompakt, August 10, 2019

[Joana Cotar is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the central German state of Hessen. A communications manager, she is the AfD’s Bundestag spokesman for digital policy and since 2016 has been the AfD’s social media manager.]

The quite real problem of deficient data security of cloud servers such as Amazon, Google or Microsoft is once more addressed by the Federal government with a poorly thought out snap response. Naturally it is problematic that these servers have been obligated, on account of the American cloud regulations, to guarantee to U.S. officials wide-ranging access to their data – even when these have not been stored in the USA. The building of a state-financed cloud presents however an unnecessary interference in the competition and, with additional subventions, burdens on the purse of the citizen.

Overflowing bureaucracy, high taxation and high energy costs for computer centers rob cloud providers of their business potential. These roots of many digital policy problems must be addressed if Germany in the IT area is not to lose ever more economic initiative and political sovereignty.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Martin Reichardt, Value-added Tax on Meat, August 8, 2019

Martin Reichardt

Value-added Tax on Meat

Afd Kompakt, August 8, 2019

[Martin Reichardt is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the eastern German state of Sachsen-Anhalt where he is also AfD chairman. A Bundeswehr officer, he is the AfD’s family policy spokesman in the Bundestag.]

On December 14, 2018, the AfD Bundestag delegation introduced a motion to lower to 7% the value-added tax [VAT] on children's goods. This would be a first step to relieve families. For decades is the child and family poverty in Germany scandalously high. Now the Greens, SPD and CDU want to increase the VAT on a basic food commodity which will affect those who at the end of the month have not a penny left over. Families which must buy cheap meat from the discounters are not being cruel to animals – they simply have no money.

Animal protection is necessary but must not be to the burden of families and those of low income. The Greens, SPD and CDU with this demand demonstrate that, in their politics, families and small pensioners no longer have standing [Stellenwert]. When in committee, I am happy to advise the relief of families by a reduced VAT. Here can all parties demonstrate their family-friendliness.

Sebastian Wippel, Election in Saxony, August 5, 2019

Sebastian Wippel

Election in Saxony

AfD Kompakt, August 5, 2019

[Sebastian Wippel is an Alternative für Deutschland member in the Landtag of the eastern German Free State of Saxony, elections for which will be held this coming September 1. He is a police officer and both he and Saxony Minister-president Michael Kretschmer are residents of the city of Görlitz.]

It so happens that the citizens in the constituency of the CDU Minister-president Kretschmer are to be fed on starvation wages. Since 2004, Kretschmer as CDU general secretary has directed the course of the Free State in a decisively false direction. Yet that is not enough: now Kretschmer, with a hasty shut-down of the coal industry, wants to deprive the region of the last good-paying jobs. The Green school children and students of the large cities celebrated by the media appear to Kretschmer to be more important than the old and settled country people. The people of Görlitz will not forget this presumptuous familiarity with the Green Zeitgeist.

[Translated by Todd Martin]