Martin Hess, November 28, 2019, Interior Ministry Budget

Martin Hess

Interior Ministry Budget

German Bundestag, November 28, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/131, pp. 16392-16393

[Martin Hess is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg. He is a police officer. He here responds to a statement by German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer concerning the ministry budget.]

Right honorable Herr President. Honored colleagues.

Herr Interior Minister, listening to your statements on the domestic security situation, an objective observer can come to only one conclusion: Either you suffer from a major disturbance in the perception of reality or you are simply flattering yourself. What you presented here in regards the security situation has nothing to do with the reality of life in our country. Germany is becoming ever more insecure and the state of law loses ever more ground to its enemies. That is the irrevocable truth.

Every normal thinking person in this country recognizes that. Why otherwise must you expend ever more money for domestic security? Otherwise, why must you worry about an increase of positions for security officials if Germany is allegedly more secure than it has been in the last 30 years? The citizen will not allow himself be treated as stupid and he recognizes the contradiction. On one, single basis you tell the citizens of our country the often repeated fairy tales of an oh, so more secure Germany. You would mislead them with the circumscribed security policy failures of a dilettante.

But I say to you: Ever more citizens see through this farce, and it does not help that you continually attempt to tell the citizens that their subjective sense of security does not correspond to the factual situation, entirely as if our citizens were only imagining that Germany is becoming ever more insecure.

These days at the Christmas markets across this country, it is indeed obvious to all who here is actually suffering from a major disturbance of perception. Our children will not be able to remember a Christmas without terror blockades and heavily armed police. Precisely that is the central evidence of your failures and it confirms that the citizens are right.

With this budget, you are attempting to explain away security policy problems which would not exist save for your unacceptable failures in the area of domestic security. Had the federal government reached the correct decisions, then Germany today would be essentially more secure. You had and have the possibility of implementing a security policy which can lead to a maximum protection of our citizens, Yet precisely here, one of the central, if not the most central, duties of our state, you fail pitifully – with fatal consequences for the life, health, freedom and property of our citizens. This security policy disaster we cannot and will not accept nor submit to. The greatest possible security for our citizens must finally be established and in that regard there can be no compromise.

You here are always proclaiming the defense of our fundamental order and values, yet you do the exact opposite. You in all earnestness wish to distribute, so as to promote integration, 7 million euros of tax money to mosques, and to DITIB mosques, even though security officials state that the DITIB is hatching large-scale anti-state activities and therefore must actually be subjected to intelligence service surveillance. You are financing Islamists and Salafists. That, Herr Minister, is “making the goat the gardener.” We will not participate in the financing of the enemies of the state.

With open eyes, we go about our republic acknowledging how poorly prepared is our state of security. The Islamist terror danger has never been so high, migrant and knife crime increases steadily, the number of serious sexual offenses, like gang rapes, increases. Women and children are meantime thrown in front of moving trains. They not longer go out to health clinics, public swimming pools, schools and job centers. The assaults on police, firemen and rescue workers become ever more brutal. Clan criminals tyrannize entire neighborhoods, storm police stations and health clinics. Security officials confirm a massive influx and warn of new, dangerous clans with combat veteran migrants.

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Irresponsible, what you are doing!

That is the machinery of war which you, with your fatal migration policy, allow unhindered into our country. And that is a scandal.

In the capital, with the consent and tolerance of all state institutions, drug dealers, completely unhindered, can peddle drugs. That certainly has nothing to do with the safest Germany of all time. Just the opposite. Germany is mutating into a security madhouse.

            Ulli Nissen (SPD): Unbelievable!

In light of this devastating situation, there remains for me only an urgent appeal: It is your duty to defend, as best as possible, the citizens. May you, God willing, finally begin to do that!

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): How good it is, that you no longer train any policemen!

[Translated by Todd Martin]

           

Björn Höcke, December 3, 2019, PISA Study

Björn Höcke

PISA Study

AfD Kompakt, December 3, 2019

[Björn Höcke is the Alternative für Deutschland chairman in the eastern German state of Thüringen as well as leader of the AfD delegation in the Thüringen legislature. He is a teacher and here comments on the German results in the latest Program for International Student Assessment.]

The disastrous results of the current PISA study primarily demonstrate one thing: Our demands for a reconsideration of an education policy of elementary competences and skills like reading and writing as well as for the abolition of such questionable teaching methods as “Writing through Hearing” are more relevant than ever. As early as 2015, we demanded the abolition of this method, yet the old parties retain it. The previous PISA results have primarily lead to a glossed-over, not a performance oriented, system of grading. Only with the AfD is there a performance oriented education policy! The already strained situation in education policy will be consequently aggravated by the chaotic immigration policy. The portion of migrants in the current study, greater than that of 2015, in combination with the moreover striking scarcity of teachers, has contributed considerably to the notably bad results in reading competence.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Alice Weidel, November 27, 2019, Budget

Alice Weidel

Budget

German Bundestag, November 27, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/130, pp. 16291-16293

[Alice Weidel is a chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland delegation in the German Bundestag. Ralph Brinkhaus is Bundestag floor leader of the governing CDU party. Soli is a surtax imposed to help finance the unification of eastern and western Germany. The Neue Zürcher Zeiting is a Swiss newspaper said to be favored by conservative Germans.]

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Dear Herr Brinkhaus, I have seldom heard from you so unsubstantial [unkonkrete] a speech. That was only hollow phrases. Not once of substance. I know you can do better. I do not know whether that is compatible with your job as delegation chairman.

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): As for you, we still do not know that!

Dear Frau Merkel, a simultaneous withdrawal from nuclear and coal power is not simply irresponsible, but is bald-faced nonsense. Here too, “We can do it” [Wir schaffen das] is of no use.

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): That was not at all a phrase.

Whom you have completely lost sight of – in your lack of substance, to which we in the meantime have become accustomed – is the taxpaying citizen. For the simply normal citizen who gets up each morning, takes care of her children –

            Johannes Kahrs (SPD): In Switzerland? Or where?

– drives to work, pays taxes and keeps this community running, there is in this budget not much to celebrate. You also fail this time to mention that this record-sized budget is only made possible by your grasping much too deeply into the citizen’s pocket. The patchwork, partial abolition of the solidarity surtax [Soli] is symptomatic of that.

            Johannes Kahrs (SPD): The AfD again fights for the rich, as always!

90 percent of the taxpayers will be relieved, you say. Yet half of the unjustifiably collected money, thus a good 10 billion euros, you want to further retain – thereby violating the constitution, it ought to be said.

Taxation justice is quite simple: Abolish the Solo – the Soli – for everyone. Those grins of yours will also disappear. Abolish the Soli for everyone, now and immediately, and not the year after next before the election. That is our demand and we stand by it!

The excess of state income must be given back to the citizens. Precisely because Germany is sliding into recession must the fetters be loosened by means of a reduction and simplification of the income tax, without the middle-class bulge and cold progression, –

            Johannes Kahrs (SPD): Again the neo-liberal theory of the AfD!

– by means of a distinct reduction and simplification of the sales tax which most heavily burdens small- and middle-income consumers, and the introduction of family splitting by means of married couple splitting so as to counteract the tax prejudice against parents.

There is room for that. The entire public tax income under your government since 2005 has doubled by 900 billion euros. That is always forgotten: Doubled! And this is money falsely expended. You have for the most part consumed these billions and allowed the infrastructure to decay, instead of investing where it is necessary.

You have maneuvered our country into a dead-end with the great, flawed decisions which will go down in history as the three great violations of the law: the unconditional euro rescue, uncontrolled immigration and the Green-populist energy transformation; it cannot be said otherwise.

Instead of correcting these failed decisions, you despairingly attempt to cover-up the consequences. The much prized schwarze Null [balanced budget] is lately owed to the mass expropriation of citizens and savers by means of the zero interest rate policy of the EZB. You can prettify your budget numbers because the federal government no longer pays interest on its debts – the price however is paid by the citizen by means of a continuing, massive decline in living standards. Since savings accounts and life insurance policies are already ruined as forms of investment, you next wish to fleece the purchaser of security funds by means of a financial transactions tax, which only touches the small saver and investor. Thus appears the Groko [grand coalition government]’s policy for the working people.

You are making private provision impossible. At the same time, the tax burden of statutory pension insurance for new retirees has increased five-fold since 2010. The euro rescue and the insatiable Tax State create the very old-age poverty which you subsequently lament. The secondary taxation of pensions is senseless and anti-social. It must be thoroughly abolished.

He who is driven into risky investments by negative interest rates will in the future no longer be able to make good his loss with a tax adjustment, not even retroactively. That must be made known.

And that is not enough. Anonymous purchases of gold shall be drastically restricted.

            Johannes Kahrs (SPD): Yes, you are well acquainted with the purchase of gold.

You laugh at that, and it is quite clear to me: That you only are laughing!

There are presently demands to require the general duty to report large cash transactions –

            Johannes Kahrs (SPD): Can you stick to the facts?

– or to set a narrow limit on cash purchases. Yet cash is freedom. You however conduct a war against financial freedom and defense of personal data and you put citizens who want to protect the rights of freedom under a general suspicion. So it appears.

You have likewise declared war on freedom of opinion. The flop with the NetzDG was not enough for you, you also want to expand this wretched law: Reporting duties for service providers, an entirely new set of officials – you are good at that – who on the basis of gobbledygook employ phrases like “hate” and agitate”.

            Johannes Kahrs (SPD): As to hate and agitate, you are the expert!

Expressions of opinion shall be filtered and accusations brought. That sounds like Orwell and it is indeed meant to be.

            Johannes Kahrs (SPD): Hate and agitation is typical AfD!

Divergent expression of opinion will be criminalized. That is your plan!

            Johannes Kahrs (SPD): You live off of hate and agitation.

Representative democracy naturally can also thus be abolished. It can be annulled by stealth.

Johannes Kahrs (SPD): Like you have people thrown out of the hall because they simply have a fit of coughing!

Not for nothing do repressive regimes like Belorussia interest themselves in the NetzDG and your internet snooper law [Internet-schnüffelgesetze]. The general assault on economic freedom takes place under the cloak, amongst other forms, of “climate defense”. It is exploited by a radical minority – we hear the braying here – of climate apocalypticers, of eco-marxists negligent of prosperity – thus described by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung – the Swiss theme, upon which you are always harping – so as to create a climate of panic and emergency. That serves as justification for new taxes, as for example the CO2 pricing, for new bans, paternalism and massive intrusion into the rights of ownership and freedom.

There is no climate emergency. A more responsible and more frugal relation with our resources is urgently called for, just as is the free research into new technologies. But what you are propagating here as climate defense is pure ideology.

            Johannes Kahrs (SPD): There you are the expert. Hate and ideology!

The question is not “Life or death?” but “Freedom or eco-socialism?”

            Johannes Kahrs (SPD): What a phrase-making machine! Can you also do substance?

Besides, future technologies will not be found at the Green table, like you put forward. Billions in subventions have already been put senselessly into the the energy transformation – and yet more billions for electro-mobility shall follow. Thereby will a non-competitive technology be made competitive. Yet subventions distort and hinder competition and the free unfolding of innovative powers.

You are driving toward the mis-allocation of capital. We will have to pay for decades for the consequences of this policy. The cascade of job eliminations in the automobile, energy and chemical businesses is just the beginning: 20,000 jobs lost at Continental, 15,000 at Bosch, 10,000 at Daimler, 9,500 at Audi, 7,000 at VW, 3,000 at BASF, and the list goes on.

And that is only the tip of the iceberg, the job losses actually go on throughout the value-added chain. It effects the productive core of the German economy. It effects the manufacturer of investment goods, the investor, the small and smallest supplier in the area. That is the misfortune: According to your tax policy, the taxpayer finances his own loss of employment. That is the irresponsibility of your government.

As the red-red-greens presently ruin the housing market in Berlin with rental controls, threats of expropriation…, a DDR situation is no longer far away. What the SPD is planning at the federal level is no better. Massive incursion into private ownership by means of rent control and restrictions by the allocation of modernization costs.

And the property tax: Instead of abolishing this anachronistic tax, it will be used as a preliminary stage of expropriation, by which ownership will be made unremunerative. The plan of the federal government to force homeowners against their will to install insulation or electric auto storage batteries moves along these same lines. That must be for once be put forward, what you here have in mind!

A once prosperous industrial country that mindlessly renounces the branch of its own well-being –                      

            Johannes Kahrs (SPD): What nonsense!

– makes itself the laughing stock of the world. Please turn away from your fatal detour.

[Translated by Todd Martin]