René Springer, December 11, 2020, Budget – Labor and Social

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/200, pp. 25148-25149.

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

The Grand Coalition has now praised itself for 50 long minutes and thereby completely forgotten to speak of the pink elephant which stands here in middle of the room. Therefore: Let us venture more reality! Just 15 million net taxpayers today finance an army of 5.5 million Hartz-IV recipients. That is almost the entire population of Denmark…

To these Hartz-IV recipients also belong over 2 million foreign citizens. Five years ago, it was almost 600,000 less.

            Matthias W. Birkwald (Linke): This time, he needed not 30 seconds!

I want to get to 10 seconds; I will work on it. – These 2 million non-Germans drawing benefits cost us approximately 13 billion euros per year, and the expenses for the asylum applicants and foreign social aid recipients are not even included in the accounting.

You here make mention of not one, single word of all that. You already have calloused hands from the mutual pats on the back for your basic pension, which you impudently name “respect pension’, for which you raise a one-time 1.3 billion euros, thus only one-tenth of what you pay foreign Hartz-IV recipients. You finish off our parents and grandparents with a poverty pension while, with utter irresponsibility, you throw away the fruits of their life’s work to all the world.

            Götz Frömming (AfD): That is what they do not want to hear!

From 2012 to 2019, thus in only seven years, around 4 million people from all the world have come to Germany. That is approximately the number of residents of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern taken together. Conversely, 3.4 million Germans, approximately the number of residents of Berlin, have left the country – mostly highly qualified experts, to find elsewhere better prospects than in a Merkeled-out country with the world’s highest load of taxes and duties.

            Matthias W. Birkwald (Linke): That is nevertheless fake news!

Today’s principal contributors flee and those who have built our prosperity suffer poverty. Since the Chancellor entered office, the number of pensioners referred to the social assistance has almost doubled. 1.3 million old-age pensioners must do additional work. They are the bottle collectors who unfortunately are seen ever more frequently in our city scenes…

And yet in the presented budget, you want the Federal government to undertake 100 percent of the housing costs for those new asylum applicants whom individual local authorities still wish in addition to take in, among which are some 200 localities of the Sea Bridge Initiative to be financed by the Antifa and other violence-ready leftists – besides others, by the Potsdam Oberbürgermeister, your SPD colleague, Herr Minister.

           Matthias W. Birkwald (Linke): Yes, since that is nonsense, what you are                                                   saying here!

That means that mostly left-green governed localities, as so-called safe havens, now attract unauthorized asylum seekers into the country, while we, in regards a portending mass unemployment and a quarter-million obliged to depart Germany, much more need a deportation offensive.             

           Matthias W. Birkwald (Linke): Take a peek at the Basic Law! Article 1! There is                                       nothing in there about “Germans”!

The German employee may then by means of the Federal budget fully finance the Hartz-IV and housing costs of these people while he himself must perform the greatest lifetime’s work of all European countries, receive the lowest pension and has the least wealth in the pocket.

You now want to expend in the coming year more than 164 billion euros for social policy. That is over 26 billion euros more than last year. This increase of 26 billion euros alone is more than the total you put into Education and Research and twice as much as what you want to expend for Families. That shows where your priorities lie. Your priorities are not situated as we of the AfD see it. You have turned our children into risks of poverty and our pensioners into the needy.

With this budget you have produced in black and white the proof that your policy has been directed against our own citizens. And that is the exact opposite of the policy which we of the AfD represent.

            Stefan Schimdt (Greens): You yourself do not believe that!

The AfD delegation rejects this budget.

Matthias W. Birkwald (Linke): The lifetime’s work in Germany is not the greatest!                    He has no idea of the facts!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, December 11, 2020, Budget – Labor and Social

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/200, pp. 25139-25140.

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Esteemed citizens.

In these Corona times, – we have this week often heard it – little is normal. The overcoming of the Corona crisis has considerable effects.

Especially affected is – no wonder – the area of Section 11, Labor and Social. The draft budget for 2021 for the Federal Ministry for Labor and Social has a total extent of around 165 billion euros and is thereby again the Federal budget’s largest section. From the draft through the mark-up session, this budget section grew by almost 1 billion euros.

A portion of these increases can be understood to pertain to some of the additions and benefits in the autumn forecast and the tax estimate which were accommodated during the mark-up session. What however annoys me are new measures which first emerged in the mark-up session and for which new means were proposed. Last year it was the aids for newspaper delivery, this year it is just about 5 million euros for promotion of workplace security in German harbors. That might be all to the good – of good intent. Yet do such ideas always fall from heaven shortly before the mark-up session and will then be quickly adopted? Should not the members of all the parties have the prior opportunity to inform themselves of these measures in the section deliberations? We shall here write a blank check of over 5 million euros for a motion the basis of which consists of one sentence. That is not nice.

Also unfortunately not nicely written is the financing of the basic pension [Grundrente]. You, Herr Minister Heil, had ever again promised that in the Grundrente deliberations. Now the financing of the whole is hidden in inexactly accounted Federal supplements and a general minimum expenditure in the sum of 400 million euros. It will thus be planned to be able to finance the Grundrente with savings in the respective budget. And what if the planned means do not suffice? Will then non-insurance benefits again be embarrassed? We must here primarily see one thing: The expenditures for the Grundrente are not one-time expenditures to be scraped together by necessity this one time in the budget, happy to have been in some way financed. The Grundrente will be in the coming year an increasing budget expense item. Should then the financing always thus pass through the general minimum expenditures?

We of the AfD delegation have shown during the budget deliberations how we can solidly, properly and before all comprehensibly finance the Grundrente. It would have been nice if you, Herr Minister Heil, had taken up this idea in the mark-up session. Yet good; the next Labor Minister must then wrestle with these confusions created by you.

We of the AfD delegation have shown during the budget deliberations how money might be saved if the Federal government and the States would follow existing law. It here concerns the costs due to rejected asylum applicants who will not be deported. That alone is still 4.4 billion euros in Section 11. An additional potential savings is the Federal portion of the costs of housing. The Federal portion as a percentage was increased, the Federal Audit Authority’s testing powers were reduced. There are therefore in this area very many cases of abuse. The Federal Audit Authority in its opinion on the cost of housing benefits has adversely criticized that the costs of housing refugees are often twice as high as comparable rents in the respective locality. By here now distributing more money and testing less, the State and local authorities will certainly not be encouraged to deal with savings in these means.

We have besides brought in a budget comment which criticizes the sum of the supplement to the German Pension Insurance and demanded a consequent compensation of non-insurance benefits.

As a result, we are not in agreement with this budget plan and will reject it.

The entire budget which we are debating this week comprises a volume of expenditures of almost 500 billion euros, opposed to which is only an estimated 293 billion euros in tax receipts. Debts to a sum of 180 billion euros must be incurred. We thereby pay with credit for our social benefits. It is right and necessary to help businesses and employees when sales collapse, income suddenly ceases and many people guiltlessly find themselves in an existential crisis. Before all, it was and is in the first place the questionable lockdown preventative measures of a round of wheelings and dealings, lacking in democratic legitimacy, of the Chancellor and the Minister-presidents by which today is endangered the existence of entire sectors.

            Beate Müller-Gemmeke (Greens): What then would you do? Simply nothing?

When however businessmen and employees must be rescued with ever new measures of assistance, the question is – and which was often presented this week – Who shall pay for that, how long, and before all, whereof?  What you do is the following: You plug holes with money which you do not have and shove the burden onto the future.

            Matthias Zimmer (CDU/CSU): It has nevertheless been agreed!

To the truth however also belongs: That is nothing new and has not much to do with Corona. The expenditures for social benefits – the essentials of which are dealt with in Section 11 – for years increase. That is no reason for joy and no reason for a pat on the back, for our budget shows, as through a magnifying glass, the disequilibrium of a witless and short-sighted economic and social policy. Today’s debts are tomorrow’s taxes. That is a declaration of failure [Binse]. I add: Today's part-time workers are the unemployed of tomorrow and the impoverished pensioners of the day after.

In that we must give back to the people by means of social benefits what we previously had taken from them in taxes and duties, we do not create contributors but future benefits recipients who then can no longer benefit us. That,dear colleagues, is the principal problem of your social policy.

Many thanks.

 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steffen Kotré, December 8, 2020, Budget – Economy and Energy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/197, p. 24839.

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Herr Minister, may I take you at your word? With you, no tax increases? Have I correctly understood that? Yes, very nice, very good. That, I believe, is the correct way.

Yet, on the remark that declining electricity prices would be a problem: It is not. It is not a problem if the stock market price declines. That is only a problem if we find ourselves in a planned economy. Unfortunately, we do find ourselves in a planned economy, and that might by all means be a problem because all is inter-connected. Then one must turn here and there instead of engaging in the market and allowing the market mechanism to work. If prices decline for the consumers, then that is only good, ladies and gentlemen.

The Tesla firm is building a plant in Brandenburg and it is also building on a plant site with an electricity supply. There will also be erected a natural gas power plant. Why? Because this firm can no longer rely on the German electricity supply. That is unfortunately so. Here, the energy transformation certainly destroys our secure electricity supply and that is a sign of poverty, ladies and gentlemen.

Timon Gremmels (SPD): The energy transformation creates workplaces! Workplaces viable for the future!

The chief of the Tesla firm, Herr Elon Mūsk is moreover a realist.

            Ulli Nissen (SPD): Do you have muscle cramps?

Musk, yes, of course; I beg your pardon. – He has expressed himself in favor of the nuclear energy of the future. He manufactures E-mobility, yet knows quite precisely that renewables also do not suffice. He therefore correctly states that we need nuclear energy. He is naturally right in that, ladies and gentlemen. Energy contributes to our progress.

Progress in energy production consists of reducing the land use per energy unit of energy production and to continually increase the harvest factor. That will thus increase the intensity. We may only achieve that with a more modern energy production, thus only with nuclear power, ladies and gentlemen. The effect of this is that we have an ever better energy generation system and, among other things and besides other aspects, that the energy of third-world countries is also of good value.

We unfortunately adopt another way: Our energy becomes ever more expensive. Yet, in Africa for example, that is for people a factor. The number of people who live in extreme poverty does not diminish on its own. Plainly it is also on account of inexpensive energy, which those who here want to promote the energy transformation want to withhold from them.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Tell that to the people in Fukushima!

Dear friends,

            Andreas Mattfeldt (CDU/CSU): Let us refrain from “friends”.

in the budget we continually read of the subvention for E-mobility. Yet what does that mean, “the subvention for E-mobility”? That means: The subvention of consumption. If anyone wants to drive an E-auto, then let that be allowed to him. Yet if we now thereby also support his interest in a purchase, and give him money for that, then that contradicts the market economy, ladies and gentlemen.

No, we should instead demand a yield. We should demand, instead of subventions, energy concepts for the the future and our money there well invest. That can only be nuclear energy. The Russians have ships with nuclear power plants which they can bring everywhere.

             Andreas Mattfeldt (CDU/CSU): Here again speaks the friend of the Russians!

The Chinese have managed a nuclear fusion for ten seconds. We unfortunately will be technologically dependent and this unfortunately is reflected in this budget: That it is not viable for the future. Thus must we unfortunately reject it.

            Vice-president Hans-Peter Friedrich: Please come to an end.

Our proposal is to make Germany strong for the future, to make it technologically strong and to again invest in research in nuclear energy.

Thank you.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Mask on!

 

[trans: tem]