It can. Tax the billionaires.
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2025
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Creating 1500B € out of thin air to build killing machines: Whatever it takes to protect the country!
Spending 50B € to actually protect the people from poverty/malnutrition/starvation: Nooooo we can't afford that.
Humanity at it's best: Limitless effort to create suffering, 0 effort to reduce suffering.
I suspect there will be many, many 'I didn't think they'd do this to ME' posts coming from German people in the coming months.
Oh no! Did you "progressive" liberal parties take away all your entitlements to appease their corporate overlords? Don't worry, I'll make sure to blame all of the German people when AfD becomes the dominant party in Germany next election
It depends on the country, I suppose.
I don't know enough about German politics to be able to place blame on anyone. I just know from observing US and UK politics that there is always a percentage of people who vote fascist thinking that it won't adversely affect their own lives personally.
The problem is the fascists have figured out how to win: rig the game so all the viable choices are at least somewhat fascist. Picking the lesser of several evils will never protect you from fascism.
You're right.
Merz is predictable and a traitor to the German people. He will usher in the fascist power grab through conservative policies - the AFD will grow in popularity as conservatives protect the 1%.
Die Linke's tax plan would have paid for the yearly debt of the government and then some; their secret - tax the wealthy.
We can afford all of our costs, we can improve society, we can provide a thriving economy for all Germans if we simply tax the ultra wealthy out of existence. No one should have a billion euro net worth, nor 100 million nor 50 million. No one need own 3 houses while others go without even a flat.
We have enough wealth in this country, it's just in the hands of the hoarders. Don't look towards conservatives or the right for change, look towards those that address the root problem!
And this is how you further damage democracy and strengthen the far right. Because a lot of the people who don’t vote or vote for the far right are people who feel left behind who are of the impression that the system is broken and they don’t benefit from it. Social welfare is a way to directly show everyone what a democratic state is good for. Policies that benefit the poor, the working class and the middle class make a strong society. But Merz and others simply don’t seem to get it or care and stare in wonder at the ever rising numbers of people who want to see the world burn.
The capitalist elite has less problem with fascism than socialism. Only one of those threatens their wealth
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Fully agree. The big problem is Germany industry is in the shits and can't afford to finance the welfare state anymore. Military spending is all debt.
... without the rich paying their share.
- Print 1bn in welfare
- Welfare ultimately gets spent into rich folks’ coffers
- Tax that 1bn back out of the rich
- Net cost: zero
What’s “unaffordable” here?
It's unaffordable to greedy corporations and billionaires who would not afford the working to have a single dime in their pocket if they had it their way.
If only "tax" meant "tap" as in "tap a sugar maple for its sweet sweet amber sap" and the freshly gutted 1% could also be used as fertilizer afterward.
Win/win! Poverty and hunger in one fell slash? I'm in.
All this while systematically crippling our tax investigation departments.
If I ever meet Merz or someone like him, I will have choice words to say.
Words alone have never stopped fascists.
Im ashamed for who has become our chancellor. Flying around in his private "middle-class" jet while taxing the poor. Jfc Friedrich, step back
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Tick tock on the fascism clock.
My partner and I almost moved to Germany last year and I am so glad we didn't. If we're going to be in a fascist country, I'd prefer to be a citizen since white fascists tend to frown extra hard on us brown immigrants.
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So... The Germans are kicking all the wealthy leeches off their generational welfare suckholes, then?
That's the real "welfare state", NGL... 🖕🏽
Then how about stopping welfare for millionaires?
Or stop subsiding e.g. plane fuel. Better for the environment anyway.
... without finally taking the upper ten percent into the taxpaying fold.
Merz is a conservative. They're all like that.
Its crazy to me that the only left leaning party in Germany was split by internal divisions between neoliberalism and progressive politics. How was that even possible when more than half of Germany's voters are left leaning?
Are you referring to SPD? They haven't bothered with actual left-leaning politics for a while. Die Linke is our party on the left, and they are experiencing a renaissance right now, but unfortunately not nearly as much as the far right.
To answer your question: Most German voters are centrists with a mix of vaguely conservative and social democratic views. And they've been exposed to economic anxiety narratives and xenophobic fear-mongering for the past two decades, while lacking the political education to smell the populist bullshit for what it is in a social media environment defined by anti-intellectualism and fake news.
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Always has been. "We cannot afford x any more" has been their standard argument for dismantling social security and lining up their own pockets for decades now.
it could easily , just slim down the government , remove tax waste and more. a city near me just bought 32 benches at the cost of 70k€ EACH yes 70.000 why ? end of quarter they didnt want to get budget cuts the next quarter. some citizens found very similiar benches from another company ( like minimal different same material ) for 3,5k EACH 3500 each or many of the million graves of taxes , we have in my city multiple "Autobahn" which arent used but were built and need maintenance why ?
Our Government makes home owners pay for street repairs in full and more , where does our tax money go?
where does our tax money go?
This is a pretty easy question to answer given that you're talking about a public institution.
The only difficulty is that the answer is complex and requires reading and understanding many sets of financial reports and accompanying minutes et cetera.
a city near me just bought 32 benches at the cost of 70k€ EACH
That's a pretty absurd claim, and simply not how budgets in public institutions work.
Sure there might have been some kind of fuckup so installation of one of 32 benches cost $70k, or any number of other plausible explanations, but large public institutions don't just throw $2.25m EUR at the end of a quarter as a budget stuffing exercise.
While I couldn't find the article anymore ( it's a bit old ) I just found one for 12 for 170 thousand.
Another where they pay 20k for each because they are circular and more.
Tax waste is just all surrounding.
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just slim down the government
It's an easy thing to say, but even with the waste and bloat the government function itself is just a few percent of the expense. Pensions, health, education and child support are the vast majority of expenses. Remove the money from government, tack in on to pensions and you kicked the can down the road for another few years. After that the pension and health costs increases and eats up the extra money due to ageing of the population. Now you're back at square 1 but with a lot less people in government to keep things together.
You can't use immigrants to work jobs and pay taxes. It was tried, got a bunch of backlash in the end and by now the right has their campaigns ready to go all out if somebody suggests this. Birth rate is going down so it'll be rising costs of ageing and no new incomes from new workers. They're f-ed and know it. We all knew this moment would come, but if somebody suggested saving now for later they got voted out of office so nothing got done.
COUNTRY welfare state can no longer be supported
Change COUNTRY for any west European country and this has been said while it CAN be supported but the rich want to get more rich
For starters, cancel the fucking F-35 order and tell Rheinmetall's lobbyists and investors to shove it.
Friedrich Merz is Germany's Kier Starmer and if you don't understand what i mean go check on UK and how well they are doing under Starmers government and you'll understand.
The passive voice in that statement is doing a LOT of heavy lifting there, Friedrich.
You mean it is now?
What if the homeless and poor go to war for your rich ass?
Then there's plenty of money for the weapons. So maybe buy less of that and more shelter, clothes, food and education?
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