Commentary on the federal budget: Germany does not need a savings commissioner

Federal Finance Minister Lindner is only complying with the debt brake because climate protection measures cost billions or the German armed forces are in shadow budgets. And that’s just as well.

There is sometimes a gap between talk and action in politics, and in some cases it’s better that way. In the budget debate, for example, Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner positioned himself as such a thrifty fox that one almost had to fear that he wanted to save the shrinking German economy even deeper into the crisis with a policy of artificially tight coffers.

Debt brake only formally complied with – fortunately

In reality, however, the debt brake is only formally adhered to because billions in investments in climate protection measures or the Bundeswehr have been outsourced to shadow budgets (officially: “special funds”). This procedure is one of the legal tricks of a finance minister, and from the point of view of climate and security policy, one can be grateful that Lindner, with the help of his special funds, acts differently than he talks.

But of course the necessary recourse to shadow budgets also shows that the debt brake, which the minister so passionately defended, is an unsuitable instrument: it is a dogma of economic and financial policy doctrines of the 1980s and 1990s and, if applied consistently, massively restricts the state’s options for shaping things.

Better railway lines and renovated motorway bridges, political education and the promotion of democracy, digital administration and research funding for cutting-edge technology, social housing and a modernly equipped Bundeswehr: everything that Germany urgently needs is made more difficult by the debt brake – especially since the government, at the request of the FDP, does so too Tax increases and the abolition of nonsensical subsidies in terms of climate policy are prevented.

State must invest massively more

The triad of “no higher taxes”, “no new debts” and “no reductions in subsidies” can hardly work from a purely logical point of view, especially not in a weak economic phase. And no: Debt is not an end in itself. But neither does renouncing debt at any cost. Investments that are not made today are the (much more expensive) reform backlog of tomorrow. Who would know that better than Lindner, who himself criticized the previous CDU-led governments for underinvesting in the budget debate.

Investing more now is the right thing to do. But the question is whether what the German government is doing is enough – also in comparison with the US and its billions under the Inflation Reduction Act. In an international comparison, Germany is not heavily indebted, but has comparatively low economic growth (if at all). During this time, the country does not need a savings commissioner as finance minister – but a growth creator.