The Bundestag has started the final deliberations on the budget 2020. In the debate Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz had to defend the spending plan against harsh criticism from the opposition. "Since everything is mixed up," accused the SPD politician before critics in the budget debate of the Bundestag.
The budget included a "substantial increase over the previous budget" and a "substantial increase in investment". In addition, there is a "substantial reduction in the tax burden on citizens" and an "improvement in social benefits". "I think that's a good performance."
Taken together, the draft amounts to a relief of the citizens in the amount of 25 billion euros a year, he said. Scholz called the planned partial abolition of the soli and the reduction of the cold progression. In the area of investment, he emphasized the expansion of day-care centers and more money for equipping schools.
5.6 billion euros more than in 2019
FDP budget politician Otto Fricke had previously said to the budget plans: "The country can not afford this government for another two years, the past is paid for by the Union and the SPD, the present is administered and the future remains undeveloped." The green budget politician Sven-Christian Kindler criticized: "The coalition lacks the will to finally act."
All in all, the Federal Government's bill for 2020, as amended by the Committee on Budgets, provides for expenditure of 362 billion euros - 5.6 billion euros more than in the current year. The final vote on the budget is scheduled for Friday.
Scholz called the 2020 budget draft a climate-friendly "turnaround in financial and economic policy". His presentation set a "course for the next decades" before. It aims to ensure that Germany can operate in a climate-neutral manner by the year 2050 and that it is "economically at the top".
"That's just right"
The government strengthens the rail traffic, promotes structural change in the auto industry, invest in the expansion of day-care centers and better equipment of schools, said Scholz. As a goal for the future he called the discharge of over-indebted municipalities. These would have to be able to invest again.
"It is the beginning of the budgets of the next decade that will make Germany a social country, that it will dominate technological change, and that it will stop man-made climate change with our opportunities in Germany," said the Minister of Finance. "That's just right."
The Minister of Finance is also currently fighting for the SPD party leadership. Until Friday, the 425,000 SPD members are called to decide whether Scholz together with Klara Geywitz should be the future chairman duo - or Saskia Esken with Norbert Walter-Borjans. Scholz is different than the competing duo as advocates of the black-red coalition.