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IG Metall boss Jörg Hofmann
Photo: Monika Skolimowska / dpa
Two months before the general election, IG Metall boss Jörg Hofmann joins the election campaign and criticizes the Union and FDP's drafts on tax policy.
"The calculations of the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) show that the Union and FDP primarily want to relieve high incomes and significantly reduce tax revenues," Hofmann told the "Süddeutsche Zeitung".
That deprives them of the ability to act, for example, when it comes to spending on education and infrastructure.
“As if these questions of the future could be solved by reducing taxes for high earners!
The voters are being kidnapped with such promises, ”the IG Metall boss grumbled.
The reforms of the last few decades had a one-sided burden on the middle class and low incomes, said Hofmann.
Therefore, he suggests relieving lower incomes up to the middle class with 5000, 6000 euros gross monthly earnings by 400 to 700 euros per year.
"The citizens should ask themselves: What kind of country do we want to live in?" Said the head of the largest German trade union.
»I also consider skilled workers to be top performers.
Not just entrepreneurs and managers. "
SPD chancellor candidate Scholz makes pension promises
SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz is also tackling the Union's election manifesto.
He puts a focus on the topic of pensions and makes a promise for it.
"The SPD guarantees a stable level of pensions," said the Vice Chancellor of the dpa news agency.
The CDU and CSU, on the other hand, do not mention this in their election manifesto.
"Every pensioner, but also every young man and woman, should take a close look at that," said Scholz.
If the Union deliberately did not guarantee a stable pension level, "one can work out what happened to a CDU-led government: then the pension level will fall," predicted Scholz.
He explained how he intends to keep his promise despite the demographic change.
For stable pensions, the first thing to do is to have a high employment rate - and to improve that of women.
"We also have to ensure that someone who starts looking for a job at the age of 58 also finds a new job," said Scholz.
Around the year 2030, securing the pension level will also require a slightly higher federal subsidy.
The state will still get this subsidy cheaper than the tax cuts desired by the CDU and CSU for top earners and high-income companies.
"You see very factually, a stable pension level is possible - everything else is interest-based ideology," said Scholz.
The federal government already has to spend a lot of money on pensions
Tax funds already cover around 30 percent of pension expenditure - the federal government spends more than a quarter of its budget on it.
When the strong cohorts born in the 1960s retire, the relationship between beneficiaries and contributors is likely to become even more unfavorable.
There had been almost no pension increase this year due to the corona crisis.
Only in eastern Germany did salaries rise by 0.72 percent.
The reason was the cyclical slump in premium income in the pension fund.
For the coming year, the pension insurance expects a clear plus.
mmq / Reuters / dpa
