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Chancellor Olaf Scholz, SPD, here at the G7 summit in Elmau
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
The CDU has criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) for his plan for a tax-free one-off payment from companies to their employees.
The deputy chairman of the Union faction in the Bundestag, Hermann Gröhe, told the "Augsburger Allgemeine" on Monday that people with small and middle incomes should be relieved.
However, the traffic light coalition lacks a coherent concept.
"The federal government only ever proposes individual measures," said Gröhe.
"There is no comprehensive solution: so that the state does not earn money from the price increases, taxes must be reduced, especially on small and medium-sized incomes." With a view to the high spending in times of crisis, the CDU politician also called for more budgetary discipline.
What is needed is “a budgetary policy that gets by with less debt and quickly returns to the debt brake”.
The "Bild am Sonntag" had reported that Scholz wanted to campaign for a tax-free one-off payment from companies to their employees in the fight against the consequences of high inflation.
That's what Scholz wants to propose on July 4th at the concerted action with employers and unions.
How big is the influence of the collective bargaining parties?
The Chancellery assumes that the current price trend is being driven primarily by a supply bottleneck, both in the energy sector and with other products.
In such a situation, the scope for influencing the monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB) would be limited.
One problem: If supply remains limited, higher incomes of citizens can lead to an increase in demand.
If the supply does not keep pace with this, the increased demand will tend to cause prices to rise above all else.
Wage increases, in turn, would permanently increase costs for companies and tend to pass them on to consumers in the form of higher prices.
In such a case, economists speak of a »wage-price spiral«.
From the SPD point of view, a one-time payment instead of wage increases also speaks for the fact that this quickly reaches the employees and low earners benefit the most.
One problem, however, is that only 43 percent of employees are still paid according to the collective agreement – an agreement with the unions would not necessarily go down well with them.
For them, but also for pensioners, for example, additional measures are still needed, which are still being worked on, writes the "BamS".
According to the report, one-off state payments are under discussion.
beb/afp
