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Hessian financial policy: old-age provision becomes a burden

2022-12-19T07:40:34.553Z


Hesse adheres to the debt brake - and according to the state audit office, the burdens will nevertheless increase in the future. This is also due to the provisions for pensions.


The Hessian debts of future generations are increasing much faster than equivalent values ​​are being created for them.

The state audit office announced this in its most recent report and pointed out that the numbers of the so-called core budget are only one side of the coin.

In the overall financial statement, which also takes future burdens into account, the so-called negative equity grew to almost 129 billion euros last year.

The pensions to be paid for civil servants are primarily responsible for this, said the President of the Audit Office, Walter Wallmann.

The numbers in Hesse actually look good: In 2021, revenue totaled 36.7 billion euros, and they were offset by expenses of 34.3 billion.

According to Wallmann, this results in a positive result of 2.4 billion euros - in the previous year there was still a minus of 799 million euros.

Even if you take into account the Corona special fund that will still exist in 2021, which was shifted to the core budget at the beginning of the year, according to Wallmann there is still a positive result of 1.6 billion euros.

For comparison: In 2020, the state government still reported a minus of 2.9 billion euros, the President noted.

Corona debts and regular liabilities amounted to 44.7 billion euros, and with the municipal protective shield and the Hessenkasse, the debts amounted to 51 last year,

3 billion euros.

According to Wallmann, that is 802 million less than in the previous year, and his verdict is clear: "The debt brake has been complied with."

Debt grows faster than wealth

However, this conclusion only exists if one relates it solely to the present.

In the future, coming generations will have to shoulder ever heavier loads.

In the so-called overall financial statement, which also takes future payment obligations into account, things look very different.

Last year there was a deficit of 2.4 billion euros, and according to Wallmann it was even 6.3 billion euros in 2020.

"As a result, equity, which was already clearly negative, grew from 126.4 billion euros to 128.9 billion euros - which is largely due to the pension provisions," said the President of 2021 and described this as the "more relentless picture".

"Even if fixed assets, such as university buildings or pension reserves, have increased by 610 million euros, we must be concerned that

The state government is responsible for the opposition.

According to the SPD's financial policy spokeswoman, Kerstin Geis, Hesse "can no longer afford" a government led by the CDU.

"The state audit office has once again impressively demonstrated to us that the CDU-led state governments have increased the state's debt burden by an average of almost one billion euros per year since 2012 and from 2014 with the participation of the Greens," she said.

Against the background of record tax revenues, this is a "fiscal indictment".

The AfD calculated that the overall deficit had amounted to 8.7 billion euros in the past two years and called for a fundamental change in direction in budgetary policy.

"The current budget plans show that this catastrophic course is to be continued," complained budget spokesman Bernd Erich Vohl, adding: "They see a further deficit of 11.2 billion for the 2023/2024 double budget, even without the expensive additional applications euros before."

Source: faz

All news articles on 2022-12-19

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