STORY: (NOTE: THIS ARTICLE IS WITHOUT SPEAKER TEXT) UNION DEPUTY FRACTION CHIEF MATHIAS MIDDELBERG (CDU): “You have stashed away 60 billion credit authorizations by supplement from 2021, 100 billion special assets and 200 billion for your double boom. They now call it a defense shield. They are making 140 billion in new debts in the current year alone. That’s a total of 500 billion in one year. That’s the highest new debt that has ever existed in this republic.” // FEDERAL MINISTER OF FINANCE CHRISTIAN LINDNER (FDP): “Now you could get the idea that we are financing this with tax increases. My colleague Friedrich Merz had brought this up in connection with the upgrading of the Bundeswehr. I remember this debate. The The Council of Economic Experts also addressed it, but by the way, when asked, it was not able to specify the volume or funds, only abstractly. Was that brought up in the conversation? I think that is wrong, given the great uncertainty that we have, given the private investment needs in clean Technology, in view of the fact that competitiveness is being jeopardized by the United States’ Inflation Act, it would be a dangerous macroeconomic experiment to also raise taxes at this time.”