Monday, September 8, 2025

Christina Baum, July 10, 2025, Health Budget

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/18, p. 1856. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

At my husband’s latest hospital stay, he required for multiple days an antibiotic due to suspicion of a sepsis. One day, the infusion ran already for 15 minutes as a nurse, quite upset, came into  the room and replaced the infusion. He had been inadvertently given a wrong antibiotic. He survived. How many others not? In healthcare, any failure can be fatal – be it by insufficient qualification, lack of language knowledge, or an overload. 

As already in a few weeks may be seen with our new Health Minister, nothing unfortunately in the rundown state of our healthcare system will change. One of her first activities was a meeting with Bill Gates so as to pledge to continue the grandiose support for WHO and Global Health by German tax money. This shows that in the Health Ministry merely the megaphone was exchanged. The puppet masters in the back rooms who want to implement their globalist, supra-national interests 

            Felix Schreiner (CDU/CSU): Frau Baum, stop with your conspiracy theories!                        That is just unworthy for this house! 

know quite precisely that they can rely on the politicians of the old parties, regardless of which color. German interests first? Quite clearly not with this leftist coalition. 

In health policy, the AfD therefore remains the only alternative. In our budget, it thus appears so: Strengthening the international public health: 60.2 million euros – completely eliminated; Support of the WHO hub operations in Berlin: 30 million euros – eliminated; Financing pandemic-readiness contracts: 336 million euros – eliminated; Subsidies for fighting the outbreak of the new Corona virus: 60 million euros – eliminated; Subsidies for central procurement of vaccines: 427 million euros – eliminated; Membership contributions to the WHO: 36.3 million euros – superfluous, since the total organization in the existing form is to be rejected; Qualification in foreign countries for care occupations: 2 million euros – superfluous, because we train our care force in Germany itself. 

A concluding appeal I direct to you personally, Frau Warker. Show backbone for once in your life 

            Emmi Zeulner (CDU/CSU): Oh, that’s rather fierce! 

            Felix Schreiner (CDU/CSU): An outrage, Frau Baum!

and put in a protest so as to still prevent the entry into force of the international health guidelines, since these undermine our national sovereignty. Otherwise, you are completely superfluous. 

Many thanks.

  

[trans: tem]

Monday, September 1, 2025

Sergej Minich, July 10, 2025, Digitalization and CDU

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/18, pp. 1807-1808. 

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

The Federal government has created a new ministry for digitalization and state modernization. The plans sound great: Less bureaucracy, more tempo, finally digital, the lean state as a goal. 

Yet how exactly should that be implemented? Citizens shall surrender their data just once, the so-called Once Only Principle. That means once I report my address or my income to the office, then the state itself should then pass it on – sounds logical, sounds good. The truth however is: The authorities have different standards. I still need to give it multiple times: Once for the taxes, once for parents funds and once for housing funds. That is no digitalization, that is data ping-pong. And it costs us, according to internal estimates, over one billion euros every year because everything runs in duplicate and triplicate. 

Digital administration – such a nice theme; it was mentioned – promised for years, that all can be settled on-line: Building permission, Kindergeld, re-registration. And what have we today? Instead of on-line service, many citizens receive a pdf for printing. That is like “say digital, but deliver by stagecoach.” Only around 100 of over 500 benefits are really digital. The goal was ruinously missed. And hundreds of millions of euros were put into advisors, platforms, projects which scarcely anyone uses. 

The same with bureaucracy deconstruction – it was mentioned today. The new Minister says: We make the administration simpler. How shall that go? New projects, new platforms, new rules, yet no real simplification. A start-up in Berlin requires 26 forms and five office visits. In Estonia: One click, 15 minutes, done. In Germany, one application lasts a week – with luck. 

And then there’s the matter of the money. The State Modernization branch has been approved for 150 new posts. 

            Ronja Kemmer (CDU/CSU): Those are not new!

Many of them are still unoccupied. And where positions are unoccupied, external consultants are retrieved for a lot of money. After months, there are also interim bureaus. By the time you become able to act, we have the next election, and you again have achieved nothing! 

            Ronja Kemmer (CDU/CSU): Such rubbish!

It was desired to set up a new IT concept. Cost: Over four million euros. Result: It is not practical. The consultancy firms rejoice; they earned four million – for nothing. That is not progress, that is a squandering. 

The fiberglass construction should by the end of the year, thus 2025, reach 50 percent. We can gladly wager on whether you still reach it. We have a Ministry which wants much, but does little; a Ministry which wants to save, yet incinerates money; and a Ministry which wants to modernize, yet remains clinging to an old bureaucracy. “State Modernization” is not allowed to remain a slogan. We require clear data standards, mandatory [verbindliche] goals and, before all, consequences if things don’t work. For the state belongs to the citizens – you are only service providers – and they deserve something better than your expensive promises without effect. 

Herr Wildberger, perhaps just a small tip: In this coalition, you simply have not a chance. Previously, all of this coalition’s election promises were broken. Why should it be different with you? 

Dear Union, you act as if you were for the first time in government. In that regard, you however are guilty: In the Merkel years, you turned Germany into a digital developing country. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Monday, August 25, 2025

Sebastian Münzenmaier, July 8, 2025, Housing Ministry

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/16, p. 1506. 

Right honorable Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Brand new housing in record time, despite a shortage of construction land and tight funds, for 1,000 people is impossible? – Wrongly reasoned! In Berlin-Kreuzberg, our state shows what is possible; at least, if the renters are so-called refugees. Then an office complex will in short order be reconstructed into housing units – money plays no role, the rental cost of 1.2 million euros per month paid by the diligent German taxpayer. If, however, it’s about housing space for one’s own citizens, then the matter suddenly appears quite different. Then all is complicated, and unfortunately there is often no more money. 

Happily, we now have a new Housing Minister with whom all shall be better, quicker and, before all, cheaper. Everyone here in the house is, I believe, aware: Building costs must go down. And which ideas does Minster Hubertz present to us with Lanz on the television? In the future, in regards new construction, underground parking should be simply omitted, and the parking places instead be moved above near the housing. Thus would 20 percent of the costs be saved. Frau Hubertz, what an inane proposal! In big cities, there is simply no room for such parking places near high-rise housing, but only the possibilities of underground garages or just no parking space.  In rural areas, that could be done, but honestly I know of only a few of which under a single family house one may, for a heap of money, accommodate one’s own underground garage. 

This unworldly proposal is unfortunately typical of our new Housing Minister. You, Frau Hubertz, wrap yourself in marketing phraseology. Yet as soon as it becomes substantial, you ever again show that you unfortunately have no idea of the real life of people out there. If you really want to lower the construction costs, then you please need to begin with yourself; since more that a third of the construction costs – all of 37 percent – originates at the monent with the state by means of insulation prescripts, taxes and duties and regulations. Fewer underground garages are thus not the solution, but fewer environmental investments, less bureaucracy and fewer taxes, ladies and gentlemen. 

And quite besides that: If you want to make housing at least a bit cheaper, then you could do, ja, as the coalition in the coalition contract promised, to reduce the electricity tax for private households. Yet even this mini-relief you grant to our citizens out there not at all, and instead cheerfully continue to shut it off, and indeed not only in regards electricity, but also in regards heating. 

You have quite openly conceded this, Frau Minister, recently in the Bild newspaper. To the question of what you would advise someone whose heating has gone kaputt, and who needs to renew the heating, you said: “Thus in no case install gas heating; since that will be so expensive when now the CO2 price further rises.”  Instead, one should preferably take a peek at district heating [Fernwärme]. – In most cities in Germany, district heating is not at all extensively available. There where district heating is available, the costs straightaway explode – the May numbers for Frankfurt: Up 36 percent. From where the district heating in small towns in the country should come, for example in regards to you, Herr Limbacher, would interest me. How that should work, no one here in the house can explain to me. 

In addressing these problems, the Minister shows her completely clueless side: One can lease or rent a heating system – thus for one to two years – until one knows where the communal heating plans were going. That is no joke – I wish it was – but the Minister actually proposed that. Frau Hubertz, I knew that you are utterly fact-free. Yet your statements show me that you are also utterly extraterrestrial. 

Your priorities are obviously not in housing construction, but elsewhere. As the Handelsblätt reported, in the last two weeks you heaved two of your representatives into well endowed jobs at a new ministerial office. One co-worker will be remunerated, non-pay-scale, according to the highest possible pay, and the other co-worker shall as an official ad interim receive a basic salary of more than 11,000 euros per month. You have thus set up not a single impulse for new housing. Yet the old-age provision for two additional comrades has been secured, ladies and gentlemen. 

Fact-free, unworldly nepotism – to that add a bit of PR blah-blah – that perhaps suffices to make a career in today’s SPD. But the Housing Ministry is for you two sizes too big. 

Hearty thanks for the attention. 

                  Esra Limbacher (SPD): Yet we have no priors! 

 

[trans: tem]

Monday, August 18, 2025

Michael Espendiller, July 8, 2025, Fiscal Policy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/16, pp. 1449-1451. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable colleagues. Dear audience in the hall and at the screens. 

Governments can be voted out, but not debts. Alone in this year, the black-red Federal government plans with its budget new debts in the sum of 143.1 billion euros. That means that every fourth euro which is over-spent from this Federal budget comes from new debts, thus from money which we certainly do not have, and also to which no income is matched [gegenüberstehen]; since to the planned total budget in a sum of 564.3 billion euros, there is matched a total income of only 421.4 billion euros. Serious appears otherwise, Herr Klingbeil. 

In the mid-term finance planning to 2029, thus in the next four years, it appears worse. Black-red will here take up overall new debts in a sum of 846.9 billion euros, almost one trillion euros in just four years. Herren Merz and Klingbeil will thereby increase the current indebtedness within one election cycle by a whopping 50 percent. They have thereby even topped all the horror calculations which we here have queued-up, following your coup d’état of a Basic Law alteration with the voted-out Bundestag. Were the Union in the opposition, an outcry would go through the country. Axel Springer would fire from all barrels and the downfall of this country within the briefest time would be prophesied. 

Yet Friedrich Merz is Chancellor, he who longed to be a Chancellor of change, who however unfortunately wants only to be an extern Chancellor. Thus everything remains quiet as a mouse. All look away, stick the head in the sand. Many think: He hopefully will know what he is doing. Others are simply paralyzed and doubt the reality. It is the monstrosity of this indebtedness which basically nips in the bud every criticism. Who willingly places himself against such a huge tsunami? Now, to that, there is an answer. We do it, once more the only ones in this country. We, the AfD Bundestag delegation, decisively oppose this madness, are against this financial policy run amok. This mountain of debt is not without an alternative. 

Yes, the problems in this country are great: A decaying infrastructure, a healthcare system on the verge of collapse, ever further climbing costs of the social security system. And the economy finds itself, despite well-tempered, kiss-kiss summer selfies, ever still in decline. Yet all of this need be no permanent situation. What we now require is a clear analysis of our spending policy. For what do we spend money? Which purpose does this thus pursue? Do we thereby at all achieve this purpose? Is there not also another way? We need thus to ask ourselves in regards each, single budget item: Is it required? Need that really be? And then we of course need the courage to say: That can go, that we no longer do; since we are simply no longer able to manage that. We can thus arrive at an authentic budget consolidation and thus again enable the state to effectively concentrate itself on its core duties. 

We require fundamental structural reforms, and need to finally stop just talking about deconstruction of bureaucracy, and finally do it. Our economy, our doctors, our teachers, all are oppressed by a flood of prescripts which take from them the joy in their work. The work ethic [Arbeitsmoral] in Germany is grounded. 

            Kathrin Michel (SPD): By you!

It is aground due to the daily, massive, bureaucratic tutelage with which the people need to struggle, and which costs our economy billions, and brings purely nothing. 

Although everyone knows this, continually come new prescripts and regulations. Why actually did not the government for once get started with that before it started the debts torpedo? Instead, Friedrich Merz travels through world history and devotes himself to the pet projects of all the other parties: Give away billions in tax money to foreign countries and the EU. And the finishing touch on that is the Chancellor wants to buy with the new mega-debts 43 billion euros worth of weapons for the Ukraine, while in this country the promised electricity tax reduction still does not yet come for the citizens. That is an absolute insolence against the working middle of this country, and it is evidence of an incapability that you here again have broken your word. 

Still more: It is a fatal signal that the seriousness of the situation in Germany and the signs of the time are ever still not acknowledged. If we want to get our economy underway, then we need to really unchain it. We need to reduce the taxes for citizens and business, and that permanently. Every euro which the state loosens from the citizen in excess taxes reduces the motivation [Leitsungsbereitschaft] of every, single individual. Why should one strain himself if from his own work so little remains; that one asks himself whether work at all still pays? And should one do overtime when the state withholds half the pay, and then spends it for dubious NGOs, or the clothing worn by Georgine Kellermann? 

The worst is: A large part of the Union quite precisely knows all of this. Presumably, many even agree with me – secretly, of course. Yet as a result of the decision to enter into a coalition with the SPD, Germany now receives a red-red-green Politik. That looks very nice to the Greens’ present lack of concepts. All that they have imagined in their most daring dreams will now be implemented by black-red. 

They certainly no longer know what they still should say all day long. Yet this red-red-green socialism, the people in the country have voted out. The German have voted for a fundamental change of course. They have voted for financial policy stability, and issued a refusal to the further-so of the downfall. 

The Union basically misplayed it. Yet we will well set it right. We rejoice at the pending budget consultations, and once again stand ready with many good proposals for making Germany better. 

Many thanks for the attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

Saturday, August 16, 2025

Irmhild Boßdorf, July 10, 2025, German Language in Poland

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)07-10(4-0109-0000). 

Frau President. 

Mohnkuchen, Toleranz, Schneekoppe [poppy seed cake, toleration, Snieźka Mountain]: All of these terms unite us with Silesia, an age-old cultural landscape. In the Polish provinces of Oppelen and Silesia live far over 600,000 Silesians – 200,000 of whom have declared to speak mainly German in everyday life. And yet the protection of the Heimat does not legally progress. Dual language locale signs are not used, or only after a long wait; German instruction in the schools is neglected. 

Yet precisely here can the Cohesion Means Assistance help. It should be used so that the expansion of German instruction finally comes forward and the village school infrastructure is secured. It needs be employed so that Europe’s cultural wealth is no longer lost. It should be used so that the involvement with the Silesians in Poland becomes a model for all Europe. We therefore support with complete conviction the European Citizens Initiative. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Monday, August 11, 2025

Jörn König, June 26, 2025, Tax Reform and Merz

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/14, pp. 1238-1239. 

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable colleagues. Dear taxpayers. 

Germany has at its disposal a tax income of 1,000 billion euros and thus has no income problem, but a spending and justice problem. Families and Mittelstand are burdened while multi-millionaires profit, accompanied by an inflated bureaucracy. We say: An end to that! 

It is high time for a new start – a new start with a tax rate of 25 percent for all. No more special rights for the rich or concerns. Simple, fair, and no longer to be manipulated. 

There is a high allowance of 15,000 euros per adult and 12,000 euros per child. A family with three children and 85,000 euros employee gross income [Arbeitnehmerbrutto] with us in the future pays zero euros income tax, saves almost 12,000 euros and receives additional Kindergeld. We promote those who go to work and raise children and thus fulfill the generations contract. 

And what does the coalition plan? They deliver a tragedy on installment. A couple of years of diminishing balance, after which a tiny reduction of the corporation tax, yet just from 2028, over five years at times one little percentage point. That is at best a mini-reform. That is the administration of a standstill. You do not once do what you promise in the coalition contract and progress program of the beginning of June – to implement the reduction of the electricity tax for consumers and business. 

The SPD asserts we would relieve only the rich. Completely false! According to the DIW [German Economic Research Institute] and the Handelsblatt of February 10, those with a small purse profit especially with a relief of 5.1 percent at an income of up to 41,000 euros. And he who earns millions with us in any case pays 25 percent, yet on a broader basis and thus more than today. 

The Union is besides no better. Herr Merz was chairman of the board at BlackRock. BlackRock by means of tax tricks withdraws at least 50 million euros yearly from Germany; in the EU over six years, it is up to one billion. Herr Merz, you unfortunately are now Chancellor. 

            Hendrik Hoppenstadt (CDU/CSU): We find that quite good!

These tax loopholes you need to close in your new job. 

The Alternative für Deutschland’s Tax Reform 25 [Drucksache 21/590] closes these loopholes also for the local authorities. The cooperative community tax [Gemeindewirtschaftsteuer] as a local authorities surcharge finally creates reliability, instead of shaky business taxes. 

Counter-financing [Gegenfinanzierung]: We have it! We simply eliminate ideologically loaded spending in the billions. 80 billion euros for migration and foreign benefits. 53 billion euros for symbol policy in climate protection, many billions of euros for left-green NGOs. In addition to that comes a 32 billion euro growth effect by means of bureaucracy dismantlement, likewise confirmed by the DIW, Berlin. 

The government instead makes gigantic debts which our children and grandchildren will work off. The debts broken promise, Herr Merz, you already prepared before the election. You had an opinion drawn up on how to circumvent the debt brake, and with the old Bundestag, a giant debts package can be concluded. The Chancellorship of Friedrich Merz is based on a big lie. We, the Alternative für Deutschland, commit to the truth. We commit to relief instead of redistribution – for the families, for the Mittelstand and for those who produce the benefits. We need the Tax Reform 25. Now! 

 

[trans: tem]