ALLIANCE FO§ DEMOCRACY

Finances in the citizen’s hands

In several articles, the Alliance for Democracy has pointed out how inevitable it is, in view of the Euro crisis and the annual level of new borrowing, that the people will finally have to have their say about the nation’s finances. Direct democracy is our aim, as described in the Constitution. We have always looked a little enviously at our neighbours – Switzerland, where order has prevailed in its finances since time immemorial. No currency reform, not even a restructuring of debt, because the national and also the state budgets remained debt-free.
Germany has always been living beyond its means, and even in times of crisis still spends more money than the public purse collects, because the system ultimately wants it to be so. And so Germany has become a member of the debt union, which can only await the creeping devaluation of the Euro as a currency. The Swiss Franc is suffering because of the Euro, but it is still alive – and in pretty good health. Two researchers confirmed: Switzerland and all its cantons are really in good order financially.
The economists Patricia Funk (University of Barcelona) and Christina Gathmann (University of Mannheim) investigated the state finances of all 25 cantons going back over 110 years. The result of their investigations: “The more say the residents of a canton have on the use of government spending, the better are the public finances in order.”
Now this is indeed a result. This must put the fear of God into politicians in Germany, if these advantaged persons, who cost a great deal and actually do very little, now expect that they might lose their privileges. Especially since our neighbours in France are now going over to the practice of publishing the financial circumstances of their politicians on the Internet, which might also be the best thing to do to German politicians.
After all the years during which German politicians have enriched themselves on the tax funds of the people, it is now time to introduce genuine, direct democracy. This would also be beneficial for politics, because the crisis is coming to an end, one way or another, and the counter-measures taken, such as the debt brake, which cannot work at all, since all budgets in Germany (both at state and national level) are doctored, will then be nothing more than an amusing sideline to a mistaken policy, which only now has taken a turn for the better. Let us hope therefore that someone will lend an ear to our proposals! Let us take Switzerland as our example, just like Norway.