October 2, 2007 (LPAC)--Prominent Social Democrats, including National Chairman Kurt Beck, have demanded in recent days that the Hartz IV legislation of 2004 must be changed. This package, named after its author, Peter Hartz, has led to the impoverishment of several million Germans through its drastic cuts in state support for the longer-term unemployed. As a first step, they want to restore regular unemployment pay for citizens without a job for more than twelve months. This was 67 percent of the worker's last pay-level, before Hartz IV cut it to a shameful 345 euros (about 480 dollars) per month, which is roughly the social welfare level. Only citizens unemployed less than twelve months still receive the 67 percent today.

The Social-Democratic Party (SPD) wants the unemployed to get the 67 percent again, for 24 months if they are 50 years of age or older, or for 18 months if they have reached 46 years of age. This initiative mirrors one launched earlier by the Christian Democrats, under the influence of their own labor-union wing.

SPD party chairman Beck has said that the party bears a special responsibility for the working people and low-income families, and that Hartz IV cannot remain as it is. This momentum among the two leading political parties of Germany, which also form the governing Grand Coalition, reflects a broad sentiment among the German population against the Hartz IV legislation. In the case of the SPD, it also acknowledges the fact that the legislation has been a political disaster for the Social Democrats, with their voter-base drastically eroded for the benefit of the Linkspartei ("Left Party"), a party only created at the beginning of 2005, which is already above 10 percent support.

But rather than the Linkspartei, which has as its centerpiece the Fabian call for an increase of "consumption power" through simple redistribution of existing wealth, it is the LaRouche Movement's BueSo Party, which poses an alternative to the Anglo-Dutch monetarist policy environment (like the European Union's Maastricht Pact) that has created the Hartz IV disaster. So far, only the BueSo has called for a return to a policy of national economy, which would eliminate all speculative aspects in the financial sector and restore a sound investment strategy for the creation of highly-qualified jobs, through development of infrastructure and productive industry. BueSo activists, notably the LaRouche Youth, have found many Social Democrats in the party base open-minded for this kind of policy change. Clearly, Bueso organizing has had a significant impact on the this change of minds among SPD leaders. Already in April 2005, then-SPD Chairman Franz Muentefering decided to kick off a broad public campaign against the "locust funds," under the impact of several weeks of intense BueSo/LaRouche Youth campaigning for a policy of "production, instead of speculation."