ZIt is part of the art of governing to put only the bright side of action in the shop window. The traffic light coalition has now perfected this art.
On its website, it bundles the 300 billion euro aid programs of this crisis year under the headline that is as simple as it is megalomaniac: “We relieve Germany”.
In fact, not only is the amount redistributed outstanding, but so is the sheer number of laws passed in a short space of time. Among other things, these grant temporary, broadly spread energy subsidies, and in some cases social benefits are permanently increased, for example with the citizen benefit and the housing benefit reform.
Hardly anyone denies that the “turning point” brought about by Putin’s war in Ukraine requires higher federal spending on both the military and social side. While the former tend to be too small, the left-leaning traffic light on the second side is likely to do too much.
Another motto would be more honest
It disregards the requirement to use public money in a targeted manner and for a strictly limited period. She distributes help far up into the non-needy middle class. It has used the crisis to reallocate credit reserves from the pandemic and bunker them for future green or social purposes that are not directly related to the energy shortage that must be avoided. “We owe Germany” would therefore be at least as apt a title as the provocative traffic light claim.
Even that would only be part of the truth, after all, the red-green-yellow coalition also has new burdens to answer for. The visible ones include the increase in the additional health insurance contribution or the stricter inheritance tax that has not been stopped. Poison are their ideologically motivated requirements for companies in view of the “turn of the era”.
Instead of at least postponing the entry into force of the supply chain law and stopping even tougher EU requirements, the traffic light lets everything run. More reporting obligations for salary transparency have almost been decided, and the threatening EU regulation of platform work endangers innovative business models. However, the economy is waiting in vain for the tough approval process to be halved.
