Citizenship - Hamburg's opposition criticizes Berlin budget compromise
The budget compromise reached by Berlin's coalition government has met with a mixed response in Hamburg's parliament. While the CDU, Left Party and AfD described the night-time agreement reached by the coalition leaders of the SPD, Greens and FDP on the 2024 federal budget on Wednesday as a "mess" or "document of failure", SPD parliamentary group leader Dirk Kienscherf spoke of a necessary compromise and declared: "It is good that the Chancellor has shown strong leadership."
The chairman of the CDU parliamentary group, Dennis Thering, accused the traffic light party of wanting to restructure its budget, which had failed before the Federal Constitutional Court, at the expense of the citizens. Instead of making savings, the main aim was now to generate more revenue. "In particular, the drastic increase in the CO2 levy will place a much greater burden on all citizens and companies for refueling and heating than previously planned. Instead, the traffic light government should have taken action on the unjust citizen's income and the overly bureaucratic basic child benefit," he said.
Even after the agreement reached by the coalition leaders in Berlin, it remains completely unclear "how our country and, above all, the weakening economy are to be led into a good future ", said Thering. "The traffic light coalition lacks the strength to make the necessary decisions and the previous mumbling will simply continue unchanged."
In the opinion of David Stoop, budget expert for the Left Party, the traffic lights are trying to "square the circle" with the compromise - and failing miserably. It wants to adhere to the strict debt brake, not tax wealth and still invest." This calculation simply does not add up, he said. "The cuts package presented by the federal government is a document of failure."
Higher taxes and cut subsidies would not be socially flanked. "These measures will affect people in Hamburg who often don't know how to make ends meet anyway," said Stoop. "With this package of cuts, the federal government is effectively abandoning its social and ecological goals."
Criticism also came from the AfD parliamentary group's social policy spokesperson, Marco Schulz: "A coalition government that doesn't really make savings but instead massively increases taxes should be shut down," he said, calling for the CO2 tax to be abolished. "Above all, savings must be made on the escalating asylum costs, which this year will once again break the one billion euro barrier in Hamburg alone."
No federal government likes to make billions in savings, "especially when it is as committed to social progress as this coalition," emphasized SPD parliamentary group leader Kienscherf. "Unfortunately, it is inevitable that savings will have to be made in view of the tight budget situation."
Now it remains to be seen how the savings will actually be implemented. "But one thing must be clear: they must not jeopardize forward-looking projects in the federal states and social cohesion. The federal government must do its homework and present a viable budget in a timely manner that keeps the sustainable transformation of the economy and the social balance of the measures in mind at the same time," he said.
Four weeks after the Federal Constitutional Court's budget ruling, the federal government reached a compromise on Wednesday night on how to close the 30 billion euro hole in the 2024 budget caused by the Karlsruhe ruling - while maintaining the debt brake. The money is to be scraped together primarily by abolishing climate-damaging subsidies, making cuts to the budgets of individual departments and reducing federal subsidies.
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Source: www.stern.de
