Budget crisis - The Chancellor's embarrassing anniversary
It is now clear: when the new year begins, Germany will be without a budget. Olaf Scholz, Christian Lindner and Robert Habeck have failed to plug the billion-euro hole that the Constitutional Court has torn in the state coffers in time. The Chancellor of the SPD was the first to inform his party committees and the parliamentary group on Thursday. At least here the Chancellor is leading from the front. The only question is: where to?
A budget is the basis of every policy. A government that can no longer agree on a joint budget is politically incapable of acting. Even if this only applies to the first few weeks of the new year, a coalition cannot sink any lower. A budget is not everything in politics. But without a budget, everything is nothing.
To the party conference with empty hands and poor values
Olaf Scholz, who is celebrating his silver wedding anniversary in his private life on Thursday evening, is facing an embarrassing anniversary politically: when the Chancellor joins his comrades at the SPD party conference on Friday - exactly two years to the day after his election to the Bundestag - he will be empty-handed in many respects. His government does not have a budget for 2024, his coalition has lost a lot of support in the polls and confidence in the chancellor's personal competence has also suffered badly.
The thoroughly presentable crisis management from the first year of government has long been overshadowed by a second year that can be summarized in three words: Heating Act, budget crisis, helplessness. A government that wanted to show its citizens prospects for the future is gradually governing itself towards hopelessness. At such times, people like to console themselves with the phrase: things can only get better. But in this case, that's not true.
"The biggest domestic crisis of the traffic light coalition"
In the "biggest domestic crisis" (SPD leader Lars Klingbeil) of the traffic light coalition, the three most important politicians in the coalition have not managed to jump over their shadows to repair the serious damage they caused with a risky financial trick at the beginning of their time in government. That is embarrassing enough.
On top of this, however, there is no conceivable political agreement on the future budget that could really enhance the reputation of this coalition. After all, the real issue is who has to pay for the damage that the traffic light government has caused the country. Tax increases, subsidy cuts, savings - no matter where the government intends to find the missing 17 billion euros, it's as if a car driver were to get the money from the next uninvolved pedestrian because of a parking ticket.
Helping herself to money she was not entitled to
But if the chancellor and his colleagues find completely new pots to find the money, if they come up with another pseudo-genius new creative accounting system, or if they even end up celebrating themselves for using the crisis as an opportunity for something, then we will have to ask why, in times of need, it is suddenly possible to do what they did without at the beginning of the coalition.
Because the fact remains: this coalition only exists because it initially used money it didn't have to overcome differences. Because it paid the bill for power with loans to which it was not entitled. Because it relied on somehow muddling through. That is a mistake that can no longer be cured. And which the traffic lights now want to make up for by continuing to muddle through. Who else is that supposed to convince?
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Source: www.stern.de
