Zby the end of the household week everything has usually been said. Friday is used for speedy adoption of the budget, the weekend is tempting. But the first traffic light coalition in the federal government is far from being in routine mode. The opposition saved their budget premiere. Their votes made it possible to amend the Basic Law, with which 100 billion euros in special debts earmarked for the Bundeswehr end up in a side budget. Without the Union, FDP Finance Minister Lindner would have had to accommodate the loans in the regular 2022 budget law – and blocked every chance of complying with the debt brake without tax increases again in this election period.
The “special fund”, as the new pot is officially called, allows the debts to be quickly out of sight and the repayment to be pushed into the afterlife. The repayment plan is window dressing, the SPD, Greens and FDP are not committed.
Pension plus not fully generated
The budgetary decisions now grant the traffic light historical credit leeway of 300 billion euros. It takes a lot of optimism to believe that the money is being invested by the state in a strictly growth-oriented manner. Only then does it not become a burden for the younger ones.
Two superlative socio-political resolutions also cast doubt on the fact that their future is in the best of hands at the traffic light. SPD Minister of Labor Heil gave 20 million pensioners the “highest pension increase in 30 years”, six million minimum wage earners “possibly the biggest wage jump in their lives at 22 percent”.
However, the pension plus is not fully earned. And the political salary not only violates the principles of the social market economy, it is also likely to drive inflation, as the 13 percent contract for building cleaners shows. Chancellor Scholz has just declared averting a wage-price spiral as a top priority. But how will he rein in the unions if he raises the bottom wage by double digits?
With the Pentecost resolutions, the traffic light secures enormous financial leeway, while it ties private companies more closely in socio-political terms. More state, less market: Unfortunately, that doesn’t sound like a viable recipe for dealing with the future.
