Socialists: New family policy measures only benefit wealthy

The opposition Socialists said new family policy measures announced by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Sunday would only benefit the wealthy and they constituted a government attempt “to cover up the failure of the slave law”.

Referring to recent legislation on overtime, dubbed “slave law”, Socialist lawmaker Lajos Korozs told a press conference that the ruling Fidesz party had come to realise that the law was bad move, leading to the potential loss of some 500,000 voters.

So now they are making big promises, Korozs, who is head of parliament’s welfare committee, said. But in reality they won’t help the majority of people, he said.

The Socialist politician insisted that “oligarchs and the wives of the ruling Fidesz elite” would not only be exempt from personal income tax but they would reap even more public money on top of that.

The expansion of creche places to 18,000 and the establishment of creches in every village throughout Hungary were promises already made in the previous government term, he said. Of 18,000 places, only one thousand places have been created, and it will be impossible to fulfil the new promise to create 70,000 places by 2021, he added.

Meanwhile, Korozs said the planned 10 million forint loan would push people into a debt trap since it would take a family 17 years to pay it back based on monthly instalments of 50,000 forints (EUR 160).

Commenting on the expansion of the family housing loan scheme (csok), he said this would actually offer an investment portfolio to high-income people, enabling them to buy a second or third home. Last time the eligibility criteria for csok was expanded, property prices grew drastically, followed by an increase in rents, he added.

Referring to the planned 2.5 million forint subsidy for the purchase of seven-seater vehicles, Korozs said such vehicles cost 11-13 million forints, meaning families would still have to fork out 10 million forints.

In response, the Fidesz parliamentary group said in a statement that the Socialists attacked the government’s family protection action plan while voting in support of migration in the European Parliament.

“The Socialists haven’t changed at all,” the statement said. “When in government, all they could do was to take aid away from families with children and in opposition they have never supported family benefit programmes,” it added.

Source: MTI