PM Orban on Tisza Package: New Face, Same Old Methods + Video

Peter Magyar, Laszlo Lengyel, Andras Simonovits, Aron Dalnoki, Zoltan Tarr, and Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi are all speaking about how the Tisza Party would overhaul Hungary’s tax system. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s new video lays out what’s really behind Peter Magyar’s cutbacks.

Tisza Party chief Peter Magyar and deputy chair Zoltan Tarr (Photo: MTI/Tamas Purger)

"Everyone has the right to know the truth about the Tisza Party’s planned austerity package," the prime minister emphasized in the video, which details the party’s tax-hike agenda.

Cover photo: Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban on the Digital Civil Circles' (DPK) tour of the country (Photo: Balazs Ladoczki)

PM Orban released the video Sunday morning on social media.

The left always wants the same thing. A new face, but the same old methods. And they’re preparing to do it again,

the video declares.

The compilation quotes Tisza Party chief Peter Magyar himself:

"You can’t win an election by saying, ‘we’ll phase this out,’ ‘we’ll raise taxes.’”

Yet the footage shows that Tisza is preparing sweeping squeezes: not only personal income-tax increases, but sharp hikes across multiple tax categories. According to the “six hundred pages of pure austerity,” the party would even move Hungary’s healthcare system into private hands.

The Same Left-Wing Logic

Economist Andras Simonovits appears in the video, saying that Hungary’s pension system is “too generous” and should be “reduced in relative terms.” Peter Felcsuti, another economist, acknowledges that the Tisza Party has indeed prepared a tax-reform proposal because “the income-tax system is in need of some progressive element.”

Tisza would also scrap Hungary’s current utility-price reduction scheme. Peter Magyar has called the program “humbug.”

Laszlo Lengyel admits he and his team are already working on policy plans — a point the video highlights — and Aron Dalnoki, speaking this spring as coordinator of the Tisza Party’s economic working group, openly argued that 

progressive taxation must replace the flat tax. 

For all of Peter Magyar’s denials about tax hikes, the facts speak for themselves.

Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi likewise admitted they’ve already begun drafting the government program, “which may not necessarily be made public.” And the video also recalls the remarks of Zoltan Tarr, who said 

he would not reveal the full program now “because then we’d lose.” 

The Tisza deputy chair also added that first they must win the elections after which “anything goes.”