Kay Gottschalk, April 8, 2022, Tax Relief

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/29, pp. 2563-2564.

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable colleagues. Before all things in this place: Esteemed citizens and taxpayers.

Today we speak in a first reading on the so-called tax relief act. Dear Ampel men and women – self-evidently – we truly welcome that you slowly arrive at reality and, due to inflation, get underway relief for the citizens. We of the AfD for very long already demand this; this, however, you have steadily refused to do.

We should nevertheless remain with the truth: One of the measures which you here extol as relief, namely the increase of the basic allowance, was and is nothing other than the exemption of the income tax subsistence minimum. It is thus money which you have previously taken from the citizens with your failed energy and tax policy, ladies and gentlemen.

Since we yesterday and in recent days have seen that for you it has nothing to do with legality and statute, I want, with the permission of the President, to cite from the November 10, 1998, conclusion of the Federal Constitutional Court’s Second Senate, which you hopefully still heed. There it is stated: 

The income tax subsistence minimum is for all those obligated to pay taxes – independent of their individual tax bracket – completely exempt from the income tax.

What you are thus doing here is statute and legality, and not relief of the citizens. You give back to them what you have taken from them by means of an inflation caused by you, ladies and gentlemen.

If we are concerned with the basic allowance: In a draft law, you make an accounting of how you arrive at your value of 10,347 euros. This is 3 percent; colleague Güntzler said it. You meanwhile perform this relief at an inflation rate of 7.4 percent. We thereby know today – summed up – that you call something “relief” – which you need to do – and this relief – and you know this – is much too little and you thereby in the end do not at all fulfill the guiding principle of the Federal Constitutional Court. I call that a violation of the law.

Well intended is not always well done; that pertains primarily to Social Democrats. We will in this regard bring in a motion to amend so as to improve. You clearly need to increase the basic allowance. We will put into play a proposal for at least 12,000 euros.

Similarly, ladies and gentlemen, the increase put forward for the commuting allowance: The fuel prices in comparison have increased around 70 cents or more. It besides can certainly do one good – yet I believe this is an ideological libel, and therefore you do not do this – to look it up at the ADAC [General German Automobile Club]. Here we read of a price increase of almost 50 percent. And, for that, the commuting allowance – dear citizens, listen to this one – will be increased not even a tenth, and indeed from the 21^stkilometer. That is labeling fraud. I say “phooey” to that which you have left over for the people who commute and who each day toil at work in your decrepit infrastructure, ladies and gentlemen.

Not least – I cannot spare you; since for me it is pleasant – Fritz Güntzler, dear Union, you have arrived in the opposition.

            Fritz Güntzler (CDU/CSU): Just recently.

Fine! Congratulations! Personally, I can profit plenty from your motion. And you know why. Especially in regards point 5, I must in fact be pleased. On the theme of ‘cold progression”, we are obviously approaching. It is nice that you finally perceive this, especially as it applies to the adjustable rate [Tarif an Rädern], which we will again bring in until you react accordingly and now slowly, like yesterday, arrive at the AfD line.

Yet to do something in the long-term against the unexpectedly high inflation, we should not only finally index the real rate of the income tax. We will in the next weeks also propose to put forward automatic adjustments corresponding to the inflation; since you cannot do it, ladies and gentlemen of the Ampel. Here, there is talk of allowances, allowance limits and lump-sum allowances. You have plainly said it, Herr Lindner: Here, for eleven years, nothing has happened. You were besides once in the government and were then justifiably thrown out; that I also prognosticate for you at the next Federal election. In any case, here we need to proceed to an automatic indexing.

The best for last: Herr Mordhorst – I know not whether he is present – you said, the real rate adjustment and the adjustable rate would not work. Keyword: “Spin-out”. Here I recommend a very good mathematical treatment – of which perhaps some here in house are still capable – and in fact a simulation by Hans-Georg Petersen who has come to the result that a fair relief is only to be guaranteed when correspondingly a systematic indexing is undertaken.

We will critically and fairly accompany you through the consultations. We are therein glad, especially because the CDU/CSU – I can only repeat myself – has arrived in the opposition. Congratulations!

            Thorsten Frei (CDU/CSU): Yet no one disputes that!

Thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alice Weidel, April 7, 2022, Vaccination Mandate

German Bundestag, April 7, 2022, Plenarprotokoll 20/28, pp. 2333-2334. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

The purpose of the Basic Law is to guarantee the citizens’ rights of freedom. Prominent among these important and fundamental rights is the right to life and bodily inviolability. This is our last line of defense. If a government presumes to bend back as it pleases this foremost right, then we no longer need a Constitution Defense to tell us that this government is acting contrary to the Constitution.

The vaccination mandate is not only radically unconstitutional. It is a totalitarian usurpation, a degradation of the individual. The sole argumentative Krüppel for the vaccination mandate is a kind of collective self-defense. Because you allegedly endanger me with your antigen, you have forfeited the right to be allowed to freely decide. I therefore compel you for your own good. – A fear-inducing viewpoint.

At what point then does the human body present no danger? After the third, after the fourth, after the fifth vaccination? Who decides that? And what gives to the state the right to compel us, allegedly for our own good? Because the proponents are wiser than the rest?

To be reckoned as the first occupational group affected by the freedom-unfriendly vaccination mandate are doctors, nurses, those caring for the elderly, who besides are quitting their jobs in droves; that is, those who have the greatest knowledge. It is thus not about knowledge, about weighing the legal interests, but about the lust for an unrestricted power to dispose. Already at the lockdown was policy made fact. After our freedom, now our bodies are on the line.

The mRNA vaccines are not conventional vaccines, but a quantum leap in the science. None of these active substances has a regular authorization. To sweet talk this in an advertising campaign costing millions as a “prick” is an infantilization of citizens stayed by a legal interdiction. Entitled thought proceeds not with argument but with a pseudo-morality. The sole rational, sustainable basis for a vaccination mandate is the millions of vaccine doses upon which Professor Lauterbach remains seated. It is the problem of a Health Minister in over his head, not ours.

The government reaches decisions without reliable data bases. There were no durable numbers for a vaccination status, for side-effects, or for hospitalization rates. In addition, even those vaccinated twice are meanwhile considered as non-vaccinated if their last vaccination is past half a year. A half-year vaccination status – here, the government itself concedes the vaccination is worthless.

Numbers chaos also in regards the comprehension of vaccination side-effects: Indications are multiplying – and I want that you here take this seriously – of a dramatic lack of comprehension of the grave harms to health resulting from the new kinds of mRNA vaccine. The Marburg University clinic opened its own special outpatient clinic which is over-flowing; there is a waiting list there of over 800 patients; hundreds of e-mails per day.

The Ampel’s disgraceful haggling over the vaccination mandate is therefore not only blameworthy, it is irresponsible.

With your vaccination mandate law, you want to empower the Health Ministry to enforce any alteration of the law without a vote in the Bundestag. For you, the vaccination obligation at 60 serves as a Trojan Horse. It is in reality the vaccination mandate for all. It does not get more mendacious.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Rüdiger Lucassen, March 22, 2022, Defense Procurement

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/24, pp. 1999-2000.

Frau President. Right honorable colleagues.

No one likes a dogmatist. On that account, I renounce repeating what the AfD for over four years in every budget debate has demanded. Decisive is: Even for the government, the penny appears to have fallen.

With the exception of a few leftist pacifists, all in this house are united: Germany needs a mission-ready Bundeswehr and the 100 billion euro financing is the required impetus for that. Yet so as to correctly commit the means, the Federal government must now begin the reform of the procurement process. If it does not do this, the troops will not quickly enough receive the lacking weapons systems. The AfD therefore demands – Achtung: Solution – the removal of the distinction of Article 87a and 87b in the Basic Law. The troops would thereby finally participate proximately in the supply of requirements. For that, the AfD demands the reactivation of the defense obligation [Wehrpflicht], now more than ever. Since more weapons systems require more soldiers, whereas a misappropriation of means is not to be. We say clearly: The Bundeswehr first!

Right honorable colleagues, almost every one of you always speaks of personal outfitting when it concerns armament. This is for the German defense politicians obviously a propitious expedient for sparing the voters the brutal imposition of a land war. “Personal outfitting”, that sounds like the motherly concern for socks and warm jackets. Yet here we are speaking of weapons systems which our country is to put into place to stop an invasion as is in fact occurring 1,000 kilometers away from us. For that, overwhelming firepower is required on land, in the air and at sea.   

Setting up Germany’s armed forces also requires the right personnel. The press already doubts Defense Minister Lambrecht’s aptitude for this mammoth task. The Bild yesterday asked: “Can This Minister Fight?” Up to now, she fortunately needs not be able to do this; however, she does need to manage the largest armaments policy offensive since the establishment of the Bundeswehr.

For that, it is urgently necessary to have trust in the organization [Apparat], trust in the soldiers. The Defense Minister herself needs not know every detail of the implementation. However, she must trust the operation of armed forces and accept it, and she needs to know that soldiers are plainly not just doing a job, Frau Minister. If correctly led and its capabilities are allowed to develop, the Bundeswehr is probably the best that Germany has. Now is the time to trust this Apparat and our soldiers. Ladies and gentlemen, without money there will be no mission-ready Bundeswehr. Yet without a motivation, without a devotion, without a strong will to defend Germany, there also will be no mission-ready Bundeswehr.

Last week, President Zelenskyi spoke to us from besieged Kiev – an authentic war president who leads, motivates and keeps alive his people in a most difficult hour, a president who renounced the privilege of being evacuated. We see Ukrainian men flock to take up arms to fire on Russian tanks. We see Ukrainian women take up arms to fire on Russian tanks. We see a people who show the world what love of country and unity are capable of. Can we Germans also do this?

An INSA inquiry reveals that only three of ten Germans are willing to defend our country. If that is true, Germany has a problem which is not to be eliminated with money. And so in the future to create what the brave Ukrainians are now doing

            Vice-president Petra Pau: Herr Member.

must everyone who thinks seriously concerning Germany’s defense capability work together for a spiritual-moral change in our country. The invasion of the Ukraine is the latest warning shot. Please take it seriously.

 

 

[trans: tem]

Marcus Bühl, March 22, 2022, Transportation Policy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/23, pp. 1901-1902.

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen..

Tax revenue and transportation budget: The Greens’ wish from the 90s that the liter of benzine might cost 5 D-mark has in the meantime been as good as fulfilled. The liter price is in parts over 2.30 euros, which nearly comes up to the 5 D-mark. That the massive price increase is only partially based on international influence like the Ukraine war is indicated by a glance at our Polish neighbors where diesel and benzine are to be had at clearly lower prices. The the Polish government relieves its citizens by means of tax reductions; the tax screws in Germany continue to remain relentlessly tightened. We demand: An immediate doing away with the CO₂ duty, increase the commuter allowance, down with the nightmare taxes! Fuel must remain affordable.

Let us come to the Bund’s largest investment budget, the budget for digital and transportation. “Investment budget” means investments and that begins already with the problems of your outline, Herr Minister Wissing. High expenditure remnants are also in this year a reality. Yet investments on paper only, which are not realized, are only eyewash and bring zero progress.

Our infrastructure is heavily burdened. Logically, the maintenance of real capital [Substanzerhaltung] needs to be in focus. Your own goal for bridges a few weeks ago has shown how great the expenditures for the reconstruction of infrastructure really are. Thousands and thousands of decayed bridges speak a clear language. 80 percent of transport rolls over our roads. This importance and its maintenance needs to be reflected in the investments and in the budget plan.

Herr Minister. There is also much to be done in regards the clarification of the Deutsche Bahn’s consultants affair. The Federal Audit Authority has pointed to the situation and in this connection spoken of care for the political landscape. Here, to finally make a clean sweep in more than overdue.

Th  T   The Bahn should be globally positioned – which has led to hundreds of participations worldwide. If one of the large logistics affiliates is for once disregarded: How goes it actually with the other participations? Just a reminder: Since its privatization, the Bahn has heaped up 32 billion euros in debts. What we need is a restoration of the Deutsche Bahn to its core business: Running the railroad in Germany economically and reliably.

 

            Detlef Müller (SPD-Chemnitz): He simply has no idea!

In   ii  In digital policy, Germany limps behind by many years. The insufficient availability of broadband for police, Bundeswehr and catastrophe defense are the sad results of this policy. Herr Wissing, it cannot and may not so continue.

Thank you.

 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Espendiller, March 23, 2022, Defense Policy and F-35

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/24, pp. 1991-1992.

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable colleagues. Dear viewers in the hall and on YouTube.

The art of government is based on foresight [Vorausschau] and precisely this capability, the capability of foresight, has been lacking in the German defense policy for at least three decades. Now that we all at once have woken up, the government wildly waves its arms about, extending itself in a heedless flurry of activity. Even the Greens want to buy panzers.

Thus, where do we stand? Russia has attacked the Ukraine and a war rages on European soil. It is at once conspicuous: Oops, the Bundeswehr is certainly not capable of defense. Ladies and gentlemen, you should have for once in the last four and a half years listened to our colleagues. Our defense spokesmen have ever again said this to you and insisted on a better equipment of the Bundeswehr.   

            Agnieszka Brugger (Greens): You mean the friends of Putin?

            Wolfgang Hellmich (SPD): And lead to Moscow!

Now we are in the situation that the defense capability of Germany needs to be renewed by a government which shortly before the beginning of the Ukraine war wanted to immediately decrease defense expenditures.

            Marcus Faber (SPD): That is just rubbish!

The populist announcement of the 100 billion euro special fund for the Bundeswehr by Chancellor Scholz was evidently thought of as a threat to force the Russians to the negotiating table with the Ukrainians.

            Sebastian Schäfer (Greens): You take your talking points from Moscow, or?

That unfortunately is actually not working out very well, and for the German defense policy this policy for policy’s sake now produces the pressure, following the 100 billion euro rhetorical bomb, that a conclusive concept needs to be put forward quick time. Easier said than done.

Our delegation welcomes the budget increase for item 14 and we would be ready to share in further budget increases with which we may approach NATO’s 2 percent goal. Here, however, two things also need be said. Point one: NATO needs to again become a purely defensive alliance.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Then what else is it?

            Wolfgang Hellmich (SPD): What else is it?

For the other – point two – a single budget increase will not help us without a fundamental structural reform and a reform of the procurement system; for we fear that now at high speed will provided equipment which plainly does not correspond to the latest state of technique and to the requirements of the troops.

            Wolfgang Hellmich (SPD): No idea!

This fear is shared by Christian Mölling, research director for the German Council on Foreign Relations, who in the Handelsblatt expressed the expectation that much money will be unnecessarily expended for partially overhauled materiel.

To that unfortunately corresponds a statement of Defense Minister Lambrecht from the Handelsblatt. She said, cite: “We do not expect everything will be planned out to the last detail”. Ja, that refers to the immediate program for the basic equipment of the troops. We also find it very laudable that she insists on this; yet, despite that: The Defense Ministry must guarantee that means are efficiently committed and the way to squandering will not be opened.

The troops of course require more than radio equipment and underwear; for example, fighter jets, which leads us directly to the procurement planned by you of the F-35. For the uninitiated: The F-35 is a stealth, multi-purpose, fifth generation combat aircraft built by the American firm Lockheed Martin. What’s interesting about this procurement is that the new Federal government now wants to prepare for 35 of the aircraft, although the old government had already rejected this in 2019.

And see here, an article in the Welt flits about our ears with the nice headline of “Scrap-plane F-35? Pentagon Papers Uncover 845 Failures in the New Bundeswehr Jet”. The most important point of criticism in the paper is the F-35’s lack of reliability. Thus, the F-35A planned for the Bundeswehr was mission ready on a yearly average of just 54 percent in 2020. In comparison: Other modern combat jets have a mission readiness of at least 80 percent. The F-35 is obviously a hangar queen.

But it gets better. These F-35s should also be purchased for the so-called nuclear participation for which we are obligated by treaty. That means in case of emergency that the aircraft shall be equipped with the free fall atomic weapon B61. Yet presently the F-35 cannot in fact carry the B61. The reason: A software failure which already for long exists and the elimination of which will last for years. The U.S.A. itself has meanwhile on account of the problem abbreviated its order.

Here now arise a pair of very interesting questions for the Frau Minister and Herr Scholz. They want to procure an aircraft for the nuclear participation, yet the F-35 cannot presently perform this nuclear participation. I ask you: Did you know that? And if you did know that, why then after all did you order it? Or did you not know that? Then I ask myself: Why did you not know it? And naturally also interesting is the question: Did the old government know that this project on that account was stopped, but no one had told you, and now here we stand, having drawn the loser from the international scrapped weapons gnomes?

Quite honestly, we fear that this Federal government with the 100 billion euro special fund sets out not only on an ordnungspolitische going-astray – certainly, that the FDP takes part in this is also a scandal – but also will more damage than be of use for a sustained toughening [Ertüchtigung] of our armed forces.

Vice-president Petra Pau: Herr Member Espendiller, do you consent to a question or remark from the SPD delegation?

– Just the same as a short intervention. – In regards the anchoring planned by you of this special fund in the Basic Law, we fear that you in the long-term will thereby annul the debt brake; I think of – ja, we know – how the bottom line runs.

I could say still more on this point, but we will have ample opportunity for that in the consultations. I hope by then more reason is called upon in the ranks of the government, and I am grateful for the attention.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Back to the theme.

 

 

[trans: tem]