Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, April 23, 2024, Pensions and the FDP

AfD Kompakt, April 23, 2024. 

That the reduction-free pension at 63 was an expensive election gift of the SPD to its – it needs be said, former – core voters is clear. Nevertheless, the problem is presently in abeyance, since alone the age limit is already continually pushed higher; for those born after 1964, to 65 years. What is overlooked by the entirety of these calculations: The focus on the fixed age limit is no longer suitable for today’s real life of employees. 

We of the AfD delegation demand more freedom and self-determination in regards pension entry. And to that pertains: 45 contribution years are enough. Who has collected this should also without a reduction be pensioned, which can but need not be at 63. To that extent, there is nothing “to abolish”. Only one thing is certain. No one should need to work longer than to 67 years. 

Concerning pensions, the FDP has never distinguished itself with especially original proposals which go beyond “we all need to work much longer”. To a pension reform belongs a socio-political concept and a solid financing. For both, the FDP has nothing to offer, which is seen in the fully under-financed “equities pension” [Aktienrente]. What the FDP now contributes to the pension at 63 is just more wind. “12 Point Plan”, that sounds snappy, only the question is: What has the FDP actually done in the last three years?

[trans: tem]

Kay Gottschalk, April 12, 2024, Tax Relief

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/164, pp. 21103-21104. 

Right honorable Frau President. Dear colleagues. Dear taxpayers in the gallery. 

            Katharina Beck (SPD): We’re taxpayers , too! 

And before all things: Dear tax kleptomaniacs – it cannot be otherwise said – of the Debts Coalition! 

I want to again help you on the point upon which we speak here today. We are speaking on that the minimum livelihood be made tax free. This besides results from the ability to pay [Leisitungsfähigkeit] principle. Okay, that is difficult for the Greens, – it cannot be quite comprehended there – yet for the SPD meanwhile also. 

I want to help you with the point of what the Constitutional Court said. We have today spoken so much of human dignity. The Constitutional Court actually derives this principle from the human  dignity. I cite with the permission of the president: 

It is accordingly not only not sensible when the state first takes from the citizen as tax a portion of his minimum livelihood, and afterwards returns the money to him in the form of support payments 

– as for example in the form of social assistance, housing money and many other things. It is besides a principle which this Debts Coalition manages for years: To take money away from people so as to refund to them a small portion. No, the Constitutional Court further states that, as a result of such proceedings, people who actually were in the condition to live independently were forced into the position of a supplicant to state offices. That reveals precisely your policy, my dear friends of the Debts Ampel. 

Yet let us come to the sobering numbers. Here, even the CDU has slumbered; the press here assembled has slumbered. The scandal of the Bürgergeld [citizens’ wage] increase on Januuary 1 of 12.1 percent, namely from 502 euros to 563 euros, occurred already on 1 January 2023. You of course then increased the basic allowance by merely 5.4 percent, while with the Bürgergeld introduction you just raised the old social assistance contribution from 449 euros to 502 euros; that is 11.8 percent. Reckoned as a basis percentage, you increased the Bürgergeld in not 15 months by around 25 percent. 

            Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn (Greens): That is falsified. That’s not right!                                 That is wrong!

And in regards the basic allowance, you have not managed an increase of 12 percent. That reveals you for what you are. To that I say: Phooey, that’s shameful, what you are doing! 

            Marianne Schieder (SPD): Na, na, na! Slow down!

 For nights, so to say, I checked that with the calculator and it certainly wasn’t difficult. You now hopefully have noted what we here demand – and Herr Lindner now partially, quite timidly – is only a drop on the hot stone. 

So as to support the same with facts, dear taxpayers up there: 

            (The speaker holds up a diagram)

From one euro – this is from the Taxpayers Union – remains 47.5 euros cents. 

            Vice-president Aydan Özoğuz: Herr member, in that regard, we have…

Print this!

             (The microphone is disconnected) 

            Herr member, I am speaking with you. 

            (Member Kay Gottschalk (AfD) continues to speak) 

            Herr member, is it then so difficult to pause for a second? 

But of course! 

I am simply attempting to bring to your attention that we here have an understanding to display no drawings and pictures. 

This is no picture. This is a graphic. 

            It was a graphic. Yet please refrain therefrom. 

Good. I do so in the future. Thank you for the reference. My party since 2019 has here brought in multiple motions and draft laws and therein demanded increasing the basic allowance, or to introduce the tax schedule on wheels [Tarif auf Rädern] which is even in some of the elections programs of parties which have been present here. You have refused all of this with threadbare reasonings and prefer to increase the Bürgergeld in the last 13 months by 25 percent. 

Your learning curve – it can, I believe, be stated – actually approaches asymptomatically the zero line. I hope that the voters at the next elections will correspondingly prepare a bill and make the X by the party which is really committed to the people who are working. 

On our motion [Drucksache 20/10975] is the program name: “Observe the Wage Difference Rule [Lohnabstandsgebot] – Relieve Wage-earners and Mittelstand”, and the basic allowance in fact clearly increase – I believe I’ve made clear why it must be – to 14,000 euros. It needs be said: Herr Lindner has a bad conscience, you not. He undertook a small project and wanted tax relief in the future for foreign employees in the first three years. At least he recognized: For real skilled labor, how I would define it, Germany is quite unattractive. Yet this also applies for the home employees, ladies and gentlemen of the FDP. Perhaps be honest for once! 

Herr Fuerst supports the whole, in which is stated in his study – I cite with permission of the President: "Who works full-time not always has more therefrom”, especially the people who earn between 4,000 euros and 5,500 euros and live in large cities; since then basic supplements and other supplements come to nothing. He calculated: When a labor force under this government changes from part-time to full-time, then it has 32 euros more. 

You thus see: Only one party here in the German Bundestag is really committed for the people. We stand for that working people do not meanwhile become supplicants of a socialist state, ladies and gentlemen. 

I am grateful for your attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Jörg Urban, April 17, 2024, Inflated Government in Saxony

AfD Kompakt, April 17, 2024. 

Already in the present legislative period, CDU, Greens and SPD have created thousands of new positions, often so as to take care of their own party personnel with lucrative posts. A renewed growth of the ministries we decisively reject. The bureaucracy is not allowed to be ever again inflated. We instead need to deconstruct it.

 

A shrinking population and the digitalization need to have as a consequence a leaner administration. We are of the opinion that the number of ministries also is to be reduced. The Kultus and Science ministries, for example, could be combined.

 

According to the government’s positions development report, alone the State Chancellery of Minister-president Kretschmer has created 296 new positions within the last five years. Similarly highly inflated under the regime of the Greens were the Justice and Environment ministries. There must finally be an end to this self-service mentality.

 

 

[trans: tem]

Rainer Kraft, April 10 2024, Energy Policy and Politics

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/162, pp. 20812-20813. 

Right honorable President. Valued colleagues. 

After many errors and confusions, the Union again professes nuclear power. This could be debated long, wide and sarcastically. Yet I simply leave it and say: Welcome back to the rational side of German energy policy. 

This is besides an energy policy represented by the AfD since 2013, thus from the time of our formation. Your obligatory expressions for an acknowledgment of the renewables of course still appear in a motion, yet have already retired from your demands, and that is a step forward. Finally recognized is that a reliable and economic electricity supply with contingent energies, dependent on season and weather, is not feasible, and is thus a risk for Germany as a business venue. 

Herr Träger, last weekend, electricity customers needed to pay up to 56 euros per megawatt-hour in electricity disposal costs so that the German excess electricity production could be dumped in foreign countries. 

Generally, a comparison with foreign countries, for example France which you so readily criticize, is eye-opening. German is faced with around 500 billion euros in system integration costs for the massive construction of the network. France does not need this construction. France will not need a hydrogen core network for 20 billion euros. 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): Nevertheless!

France does not need 16 billion euros every 20 years for large electricity storage facilities. And electricity disposal costs for excess electricity no French electricity customer will ever need pay. 

            Beatrix von Storch (AfD): Hear, hear!

Yet what France does have, Herr Träger, are emission values of around 20 grams CO₂ per kilowatt-hour of electricity. I venture in this place a prognosis: With your energy policy, Germany will never achieve this value. 15 million tons of CO₂ – for the science-adverse Ampel coalition, the most dangerous substance on Earth – since the final exit from nuclear power in 2023 will each year additionally be emitted in the German energy sector. 

             Harald Ebner (Greens): Wrong! Wrong! Less than ever!

To 2030, that will total up to around 90 million tons of CO₂. For the Ampel, it’s all the same. 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): No, that’s simply not right! Fake news!

Dear colleagues of the SPD, Greens and FDP, finally admit that, for you, CO₂ emissions are all the same! For you, it’s only about an ideology, business nepotism for the re-distribution of tax billions, and the patronizing of the citizens. Throughout Europe, the hydrogen preliminary projects are dying:           

            Harald Ebner (Greens): Remain with the atom!

Lately, the H₂ Sines Rotterdam project in the billions; earlier, the German lighthouse project “West Coast 100” in Heide. Other projects like Uniper in Rotterdam are put off for the present. Nevertheless, billions in tax monies, provided for in means of promotion, die in one project after another. Yet in the BMWK [Economy and Climate Ministry], one continues to ride the dead hydrogen horse. 

It is thus right and important that the Union sees it as does the AfD, and that the society-splitting firewall falls in the energy policy. Doubts are nevertheless brought up, dear Union. The Union demands forbidding the decommissioning until a new government can conclusively clarify the question. It naturally needs be said more precisely: Until a new Chancellor and his coalition partner decide this. Since it well needs be asked, dear Union. How, with a Green coalition partner, do you want to introduce the fundamental, required change of direction in the German energy policy? 

Dear Union, if you seriously mean it with the return of nuclear energy and an end of the catastrophic green energy policy, then one thing is clear: The firewall must go! 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): Oje, oje!

To sum up. Dear colleagues, your motion goes in the right direction. We agree with it, even if it is faint-hearted and lets miss precisely what this country in the present economic situation urgently requires: A basic avowal for a fundamental, long-term and reliable change of direction in the German energy policy. Since the contingent energies with immense integration costs do not deliver what our industry and citizens need. You thus have a choice: Either you sell out the welfare of our country in an ideological coalition with the Greens, or you decide for cooperation in energy policy with the AfD. 

 

[trans: tem]

Markus Buchheit, March 26, 2024, Compulsory Refurbishment of EU Buildings

EU Parliament, Written Question to the Commission, E-000948/2024. 

The Commission has ordered the compulsory refurbishment of all public buildings in the EU. 

Can it therefore say which of its own or rented buildings in Brussels and Luxembourg, and those of its delegations and agencies, meet which energy standards? 

How much will refurbishment cost until single-glazed glass fronts, revolving doors, open garage entrances and draughty gaps between window panes and frames all meet the highest level of insulation it has prescribed?

Peter Boehringer, March 21, 2024, Debt Brake

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/160, pp. 20611-20612. 

Frau President. 

For the umpteenth time the Linke wants to abolish the debt brake, this time disguised as a “reform”. Meant, however, is the cold abolition; Herr Görke was certainly at least honest. Since 2020, we clearly have a great coalition of all old parties for a boundless making of debt. In addition, we know that the tax money will not be sufficient for the government even in 2025. And the SPD’s speaker has confirmed that a great left-green debt coalition thoroughly sympathizes with this “reform”, or with the abolition idea. 

What does the Linke now concretely propose? In the future, a “transition phase” of precisely one year shall increase the possible excess indebtedness, which diametrically contradicts what the Federal Constitutional Court permitted just last November: Very clearly, a setting aside of the debt brake only for the year of a catastrophe itself. Any time exceeding a year was explicitly forbidden by the Federal Constitutional Court. That does not interest the leftist writers of the motion. 

In the motion’s second demand, the single hard guideline of Article 115, namely the structural deficit limit of 0.35 percent of GDP, shall be annulled. That however would be no “reform” of the debt brake, but a material alteration of the Basic Law’s wording, which may not proceed with a simple motion but only with a law to amend the Constitution with a two-thirds majority. The motion is thus also badly written. 

With the third demand, the besides already highly mathematical finding procedure for the debt brake’s business cycle component shall be still further complicated. Who for once takes a rudimentary look at the formulation [Formelwelt], and the arbitrary scope of valuation which will be used for this calculation, knows that a self-indebted government chronically short of money can thereby vastly exceed the permitted limit of indebtedness – even today. The aim of the Linke, to receive still “greater fiscal scope”, as it is in the motion, is thus absurd, since this scope today already is enormous. 

Clearly, the terms in Article 115 of the Basic Law are very spongy. There are therein named arbitrary expectations without clear deduction criteria, free of parameters as a result of unclear entities, certain cyclical norms, gaps in production, estimates of potential and cyclical settlement procedures, all without binding definitions. And the number in the end will determined by technocratic procedures and legal decrees. 

Dear Linke, you should here just simply love the already existing planned economy, instead of wanting to reform it. Precisely that of course already is your vulgarized Keynesian theoretical model of a world. Simply enjoy it as long as you are still permitted to sit here and play with a national economy. 

Many thanks. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Nothing missed there!

 

[trans: tem]