Finance Minister Lindner has to defend himself against excessive spending requests from his cabinet colleagues.
When it comes to the basic budget figures for 2024, he has to make it clear to the coalition partners that they cannot pretend that there is no war.
A commentary by Georg Anastasiadis.
One almost wants to feel sorry for the troubled federal government: "No money there for nothing" - that is, in short, the lament of the coalition partners to Finance Minister Lindner.
He is currently haggling over the basic budget figures for 2024. Family Minister Paus from the Greens complains bitterly that the twelve billion euros she has requested for the new basic child security system should be cut.
And the climate minister is angry because Lindner does not want the taxpayer to step in for Habeck's horrendously expensive ban on oil heating, which the citizens are up in arms about.
Meanwhile, new jobs are being created in the ministries as if there were no tomorrow.
This is not the time for the tax increases demanded by the SPD
What the generous ministers overlook: the state collects more taxes than ever before, and every year the income grows faster than what the country generates.
In 2024, almost a trillion euros will probably flow into the Treasury coffers, 60 percent more than ten years ago.
And that's still not enough for the insatiable?
The fact that the state is struggling is not due to a lack of income, but because generations of politicians have distributed benefits to their voters, inflated the welfare state and are increasingly using average earners, not just the rich, to finance it.
They react to the record-high taxes by withdrawing into private life: Statistically, no one in the EU recently worked fewer hours than the Germans.
This is not the time for the tax increases demanded by the SPD.
Or for secret tax increases such as the cancellation of the commuter allowance, which the Greens see as just a “climate-damaging subsidy”.
And it's not the time for stubbornly working through the coalition agreement, just as if there were no war.
Lindner probably still has to make that clear to some of his partners in the “breaking coalition”.
George Anastasiadis
