
At Markus Lanz on ZDF, the guests discuss the gas crisis and citizen income. There is good news for winter.
Hamburg – What exactly does solidarity mean? This question, which presenter Markus Lanz Hubertus Heil (SPD), the Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, puts at the beginning of the program, is one of the most important ones that we as a society currently have to ask ourselves. Because in times when the cost of living is skyrocketing and more and more people have to fall back on their reserves or state aid to survive, it shows how seriously a society is about the universally cited community of solidarity.
According to the statements that Hubertus Heil makes on the show, he is really serious about the solidarity community. “When you have responsibility in your body, you don’t just think petty about the next election,” Heil replies to the provocations of the journalist Michael Bröcker (Media Pioneer), who is behind the sharp criticism of SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil of Robert Habeck ( Greens) smells a good portion of political calculation. “We must not allow Mr. Putin to divide this country – economically and socially,” Heil urged the group.
Markus Lanz on ZDF: According to Hubertus Heil, nobody will have to freeze in winter
But if we are a society based on solidarity, why only the gas customers have to save Uniper, asks moderator Lanz. Even those who are not Uniper customers? “A legitimate question,” says Michael Bröcker, who is the weakest figure in the group that evening. Also because his complicated questions and explanations can only be understood by those who are well versed in the subject and economics. For economist Monika Schnitzer, who keeps trying to explain these complex relationships in a way that everyone can understand, the answer is very clear: the gas surcharge is a premature signal to save energy.
After all, according to Hubertus Heil, the good news is that nobody will have to freeze in winter due to the gas shortage. “We’re not quite through yet,” said the SPD Minister to Markus Lanz, but the storage facilities are well filled and Germany has a good chance of getting through this winter without a new level of gas shortages.
But where does the money come from that the government wants to use to help companies and the population get through these multiple crises well? The economist Schnitzer proposes an energy solo similar to the solidarity contribution that was introduced at reunification. Michael Böcker believes that the SPD should finally admit that the debt brake can no longer be maintained.
Minister of Labor defends citizen money with Markus Lanz (ZDF).
Keyword citizen money. How is this supposed to be financed? “The citizen’s income is not about spending more money,” Heil defends the concept, but about “getting people back to work faster and making sure that the system becomes less bureaucratic.” The state has a constitutional obligation to give those people who cannot help themselves to secure a socio-economic subsistence level. “That’s the citizen’s income.” That has “nothing at all” to do with an unconditional basic income.
According to Heil, the goal is “that work is more than earning a living” and wherever possible, he would want to get people into work instead of spreading poverty and need. An iron goal that salvation pretends here. And when you see how vehemently he stands up for the needs of the needy again and again in this program on ZDF, you have hope that Heil is really serious about it. But as the SPD politician Regine Hildebrandt put it so beautifully: “We can talk for hours about the fact that in this system the weaker ones are being subverted, that’s no use – we have to do something about it!” Citizens’ income could be a first step in be this direction. (Bettina Schuler)