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Mr Orbán said family is the most important thing in the world, and peace is the most important organising principle behind the government’s overarching plans focusing on families.
He explained that there were two underlying organising principles behind the government’s announced tax cuts; the first prerequisite is peace. These cannot be implemented in times of war, and so in the past three years, they could not even contemplate breakthrough-like changes and “unprecedented measures amounting to nothing short of world sensations” such as the decisions supporting families, he added.
He indicated that there were still severe, bloody battles under way on the frontline, but peace was now well within reach, and it was also clear that the war would not escalate because the United States had joined the side of peace. He stressed that this was the first time he felt that it was possible to organise economic policy according to the logic of peace.
The Prime Minister said the second organising principle is that “family is the most important thing in the world.” “All these measures – fundamentally, changes affecting the system of taxation – are based on this simple sentence,” he said, adding that those who decide to have children should not be worse-off financially than those who do not.
Regarding the considerations that the Hungarian system of taxation is based on, he pointed out in the first place that “if there is work, there is everything,” while if there is no work, then in general “there is only suffering, poverty and problems.” Everyone should have jobs and our families should be strong, he stressed.
He recalled that many had ridiculed the government about the creation of one million new jobs in ten years, but it had turned out that it was possible. Mr Orbán pointed out that the government had not discarded the social approach of helping the poorer and had retained the family allowance, but had introduced the tax benefit in relation to children because this was where the principles of work and children met. He took the view that as a result, many, mainly Roma families returned to the labour market who earlier settled for the lifestyle that “we have a family, we have children, but despite not having a job, we can still get by.”
In continuation, he said they next introduced measures helping young people, including personal income tax exemption for young people under the age of 25 years and women raising minimum one child under the age of 30 years as well as life-time personal income tax exemption for working mothers raising four children.
Then Covid and the war struck, and the task in hand changed entirely, there were wartime conditions, and we should be happy that we survived and got this far, the Prime Minister observed.
He took the view that “now that the war is over” and the economy is strong because 4.7 million people have jobs, we have resources that we can use. He said the top priority is to complete the government’s family policy and to double the tax benefit available in relation to children because due to the war and “inflation induced by the sanctions,” it lost much of its value.
This will take place in two stages: this year, families with one child will be able to deduct HUF 20,000, families with two children HUF 80,000 and families with three children HUF 200,000 from their taxes. From this October, mothers with three children will receive life-long income tax exemption, mothers with two children under the age of forty years will stop paying personal income tax from 1 January, mothers between the ages of 40 and 50 will be next from 2027, while after this, they will reach the pensionable age or even above, the Prime Minister listed.
He said over a period of four years, a unique taxation system will come into being which has families at its centre. Hungary will be a tax haven for families where young people will have the opportunity to choose family as a career, Mr Orbán said. The women, the girls have already been born who – once this system is completed – will grow up in such a way that they will not pay income tax when entering adulthood and the realm of work and will likewise not pay income tax upon exiting as pensioners. There will be millions of them, Mr Orbán pointed out, highlighting that if the western world wants to solve its problems not with immigration and migration, but by resorting to its own resources and families, they will have to switch to the kind of mentality that Hungary is now trying its hand at.
Mr Orbán said there are around 120,000 mothers of two under the age of 40 years, there are some 230,000 to 240,000 mothers of three, while the number of mothers with two children between the ages of 40 and 50 is around 230,000. Meaning that critics are, indeed, right in that the Hungarian government has made an enormous pledge, he admitted. He recalled, however, that in the past 15 years, the government had done nothing but things that were thought to be impossible. For instance, they halved the personal income tax: the middle classes paid a 35 per cent income tax, and if the Left returned, they would do so again.
“We introduced the public works scheme and increased the minimum wage, meaning that we did a great many things that many said were impossible, but which then turned out to be possible,” he recalled.
He also mentioned the consideration about where money should go if the economy is doing well and there is money. “I understand that people of finance and multinational companies would like the money to go to them. It’s painful for them that the money goes not to them, but to families if it’s up to us,” he pointed out.
He indicated that in the meantime they also had to reduce the deficit of the budget and the sovereign debt which required an all-out effort. This is an affair of such gravity which requires the prime minister’s constant personal attention and supervision, while the minister for the economy must deliver the professional expertise that is necessary for properly administering the other chapters of the budget in order to ensure the realisation of our family support policy, he explained.
Regarding the curbing of inflation, Mr Orbán pointed out that “first of all, we must stop the hocus-pocus.”
“I ask myself and also members of the government this question: look at producers, people who keep animals, people who produce milk. They’re paid 200 forints. I go into the shops, it’s 550. Tell me, how is this possible? What causes this? And if there is such a huge difference, why raise the price by 30 per cent at the beginning of the year?” he asked. He added that we should forget the blah-blah-blah. Instead, we should ask the questions: Who increases the prices and where is the money? Where does it end up? And what is the reason? What should be done? How can they help traders, producers or processing companies? How can the government help them to reduce their costs, and not be compelled to raise prices? “And how can I induce them not to increase prices by such high percentages? Because during the war I understood – though I wasn’t happy – that there was the war, inflation and energy price increases, and those would be reflected in prices in general, but now the war is over, there is peace, why did they increase prices so much?” he asked, expressing resentment.
According to Mr Orbán’s conclusion, they must find clear answers to these questions, and therefore he instructed the minister for the economy to start negotiations with traders to convince them “that this is not the time to make extra money on the people” when we are just coming out of a period of war. “We ask for moderation, and if convincing doesn’t work, we’ll ask the minister for the economy to draft an action plan about how those who raise prices could be forced to not raise prices so much,” he pointed out.
He also highlighted that pensioners who are even more exposed to the negative effects of inflation must be addressed as a separate priority because pensions can never increase at the same rate as wages. Therefore, they worked out a system under which – rather than reducing the VAT on certain basic foodstuffs subject to VAT at a rate above 5 per cent because two thirds of the resulting price reduction tends to stay in the pockets of traders – they will provide VAT refunds for pensioners in the simplest possible way. This method will be developed by the minister for the economy and will be implemented in the second half of the year, amounting to a monthly tax refund of HUF 10,000 to HUF 15,000 per person. The budget will be able to cope with this, he indicated.
Regarding the USAID affair, he said also in Hungary we must expose the activities of the extensive international left-wing network which is responsible for a major corruption scandal affecting the entire western world. With a rapid course of action we must urgently complete the job that US leaders Donald Trump and Elon Musk started, he stated.
He recalled that the essence of the scandal was that money had been given to people, organisations and media outlets in order to relay certain expected messages to the people, and they had sold them as independent, tolerant activities of sensitisation. Mr Orbán added that they had given us horrible advice, such as letting migrants in, standing for the continuation of the war or that it was good to expose school-age children “to the world views of all sorts of gender activists.” He observed that the network had paid Hollywood stars millions of dollars to go to Kiev because “they believe that the war is just, the war is good, and it must be continued.” He stressed that the “tentacles” of the affair reaching Hungary must be severed through the adoption of the necessary legal rules. Hungary is not prepared for this kind of self-defence, there are gaps and loopholes here, meaning that the conditions of Hungarian sovereignty, an influence-free Hungarian public life are not in place, and these legal conditions must be put into place and then enforced, Mr Orbán said, also announcing that from 1 March they will launch a hunt against drug dealers.
He stressed that the rapid and invasion-like distribution of new types of drugs fundamentally in small settlements was a significant problem as “they destroy and eventually even kill our children.” We must clearly state that drug dealers “live off and make money off poisoning our children,” and they have no right to do that. Anyone who pursues such activities will be punished very severely, “they will be slapped so hard that their ears will fall off,” he said.
We must lay it down in the Constitution that in Hungary the use of drugs is a punishable offence. We must reinforce the police, we must set up action groups, and with a sweeping series of actions we must quite simply cleanse the entire country of “these new types of designer drug concoctions,” he stated.
Regarding the Budapest Pride, the Prime Minister said “there is no such thing anymore, it’s over.” There should not have been in the past either, but there was because the US Ambassador walked at the head of the march which clearly expressed the idea that the world’s great powers support this cause, Mr Orbán added, mentioning that this is contrary to the possibility of our children’s healthy and balanced development as desired by their parents.
He pointed out that the Hungarians lived in a normal world, “here, the madness has not escaped,” the man of the street believes that there is man and there is woman, and if anyone wants to change their sex, “they must change from something to something else, but there is no third, fourth or fifth option, there is none of that.”
The Prime Minister described Ukraine’s accession to the European Union as inconceivable. He is unable to cite a single argument from the viewpoint of the Hungarian interests that would warrant Ukraine’s accession, while “I can cite a great many arguments that go against admitting Ukraine,” he said.
He pointed out that he was opposed to the admission of the neighbouring country because “it would destroy us,” primarily, Hungarian agriculture, and secondly, the entire Hungarian national economy. “Neither do I see clearly how we could curb the crime that would flow into Hungary as a result,” he said.
