Basic child security: Paus insists on a twelve billion claim
IThe Federal Minister for Family Affairs insists on the coalition’s budget dispute Lisa Paus (Greens) on their financial ideas for basic child security. “Twelve billion euros are at the lower end of what would be needed to significantly reduce child poverty in Germany,” she told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”. Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD) called for a discussion about heavier burdens for the rich.
The coalition has been arguing about the 2024 federal budget for weeks; the decision on the key parameters planned for mid-March has been postponed indefinitely. Several ministers, including Paus, are calling for significantly higher budgets for their departments. Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner (FDP) but has a very narrow leeway because he wants to comply with the debt brake and rejects tax increases.
Regarding the costs of the planned basic child security, Paus said that a large part of the money would be needed “for inflation compensation and higher claims”. But she wanted to “finally initiate a trend reversal”. The basic child security is “a paradigm shift, not only technically, but also if possible with a clearly noticeable increase in benefits for children in poorer families”.
Paus suggested reducing the child allowance in income tax to partially finance the project. “It is absurd that wealthy families are relieved much more of the child allowance than poorer families who only receive child benefit,” she told the newspaper.
President of the Bundestag base told the newspapers of the Funke media group about the budget dispute that it was correct “that the money is not being spent lavishly”. At the same time, however, “the distribution of wealth in Germany” must also be considered. “If we don’t want to incur any new debts, the question remains: How do we deal with the wealthy, can’t we also have a different tax policy?”
A wealth levy for particularly rich people could be a way “to relieve people today without new debts for future generations, to strengthen our education system or to invest in our infrastructure,” said Bas. This applies even if Lindner “doesn’t want to hear it”.
SPD boss Lars Klingbeil asked the cabinet to come to an agreement. “As party leader, I am not involved in the government’s budget negotiations. As party chairman, however, I expect that the goals of the coalition agreement will be implemented with the help of a serious budgetary policy,” he told the “Welt am Sonntag” according to a preliminary report on Saturday.
It is important to him “that the goals of the coalition agreement to modernize Germany are met in order to clear the reform backlog of recent years,” said the SPD leader. “For me, it’s all about three areas: new economic strength, security for our country and social cohesion.”
“If the government doesn’t come up with a good solution, I still have a few proposals for budgetary policy,” added Klingbeil. “I’ll be happy to make them public.”
