Peter Boehringer
Corona Crisis
German Bundestag, March 25, 2020, Plenarprotokoll
19/154, pp. 19131-19132.
[Peter Boehringer is an
Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from Bavaria and is currently
chairman of the Bundestag budget committee. He here presents a set of AfD
motions supplementary to the government’s program presented in response to the
Corona crisis.]
Herr President. Honorable colleagues.
The
people’s health always has priority. At the moment, the AfD has no better
founded knowledge than the government’s advisers. We support the measures of
immediate care for life and health, for the billions for hospitals and small
businesses, as well as for the measures against the further spread of the
pandemic. Corona patients in hospitals, or those today still healthy who yet
tomorrow could be Corona patients, must have no worries that their treatment
may fail on account of money, either for protective gear or ventilators.
At
the same time, however, many of the shut-down measures presented today by the Federal
government are no longer just decisive but, in the post-war era, unprecedented –
Minister Scholz has also more or less said that – and already after a few weeks
those measures themselves are an existential threat for many people. This is
explicitly not about the entirely undisputed and necessary prevention of
dangerous Corona parties. Even the temporary minimalization of social contacts –
as stringent as it is – will be supported for the moment by the AfD. Yet we
must think ahead. To bring an entire country to a standstill will in a brief
time lead to irreversible consequences for many people and businesses: Physical
burdens resulting from limits of freedom, closings of operations, financial
emergencies resulting from lay-offs, not to mention infringements of civil and
property rights. It is illusory to believe that public funds, that is, the tax
money of society itself, could alone come near to being sufficient to replace
the private sector’s creation of value, which is at the moment almost wholly
paralyzed.
German
businesses generate value to the sum of three and a half trillion euros per
year; that is, 300 billion each month. The state itself could not replace half
of that with the massive set of measures put forward today, not even for a
one-time period of six months. Today, ja,
all must be subordinated to medical necessity. Yet the measures in regards the
horrendous financial, psychic and social consequences of the present standstill
will at frequent intervals be yet again questioned by us, the legislators, on
the basis of a constantly changing fund of knowledge, be it the development of
vaccines or the hopefully soon declining number of cases. Some foreign developments
permit some hope here. I therefore in today’s debate urgently implore you in
the interests of Germany to vote for our general motion to narrowly limit the
time period of many of the measures.
In
three to four weeks, the first peak – I emphasize, the first peak – of the
Corona pandemic will be passed. The recently implemented measures of shut-downs
and border closings now, after long delay by the government, will naturally
take effect. The intensive care stations will have the worst behind them.
Jan Korte (Linke): How do you know
all that ? Smart guy!
Besides,
our doctors, care-givers and nurses are doing an excellent job so that as yet
there are notably fewer deaths than predicted. For that, from those of us here,
many thanks.
The
Corona crisis unfortunately will not yet be overcome in April; nevertheless,
due to the current, weekly economic damage of over 50 billion euros, a slow
re-boot [ein langsames Wiederhochfahren]
of the country will be unpleasant. Our motion therefore proposes that the
Bundestag save the country with this, in my opinion, vital option. It is as
vitally necessary as the direct measures against Corona.
The
Alternative for Germany hereby observes its responsibility in the time of the
pandemic. We demand a time limitation and an examination of today’s
Corona-conditioned, express measures at each alteration of the situation. The
Bundestag, until the overcoming of this health crisis, should regularly concern
itself with whether and which measures are still absolutely compelled and how appears
the entire plan and exit strategy [Ausstiegsplan]
of the Federal government, of which this submitted set of laws makes no
rudimentary presentation.
The
AfD does not leave people in the lurch, neither the old and ill in the
intensive wards, nor the unemployed in this time of closed businesses. We
support the measures; we have already in part supported them. But the
government’s hubris of total control and the financing of the entire society by
an all-powerful state has already failed in normal times and more than ever in
the Corona crisis. In the long term, only a reanimated private sector can generate
the figures required for an optimal healthcare for the people. Nothing comes
from nothing. Electricity does not come from the wall socket and state aid
money actually does not come from the KfW [state development bank] credit
creation process but from the taxes of precisely those people who themselves
should be properly kept healthy with that money. In the long term, one cannot
print one’s way out of a crisis. The country itself must go back to work [muss wieder ins Wirtschaften kommen];
according to our reckoning, at the latest in three months, at least slowly. That
as well coincides with the estimates of the experts’ council of the Federal
government itself, of which in today’s debate there has been no mention anyhow.
In
the long term, only a halfway capable [vermögende]
and free society can be a healthy society. Over-indebted and impoverished
countries were generally in the world and in history unhealthy countries with
short life spans for the people. The collateral damage of the present shut-down
situation will in a few weeks become unbearable for the economy and intolerable
for the people. Therefore, please vote for our motion of narrow time limitation
and regular examination of the submitted measures.
Many
thanks.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
