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Chancellor Merkel, Vice Chancellor Scholz
Photo: CLEMENS BILAN / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
Psychologists know that discipline can also become pathological.
For example, those who wash their hands dozens of times a day are no longer following a sensible hygiene rule, but rather an insane tick of cleanliness.
The experts then speak of an "obsessive-compulsive disorder".
If everything is not wrong, the way Germans deal with the debt brake introduced ten years ago is now taking on similar pathological features.
It is a sensible act of self-restraint for the state to limit its borrowing in order to protect future generations from excessive financial burdens.
But if you stick to the rule in a crisis of the century like the corona pandemic, without considering the consequences, you will have the opposite effect.
It weakens the economy and provides less money for the future without improving the state's financial position.
He turns debt into a brake on growth.
But the grand coalition is clearly determined to do just that.
Although it is foreseeable that the fight against the virus will devour further double-digit billions in the next year, Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz want to comply with the debt rule again as early as 2022.
Paying off until the doctor comes, that is the political program of the Chancellor and Chancellor candidate.
Even if those companies and jobs are lost that they want to defend.
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