Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) chaired the meeting in the Chancellery.
(Photo: dpa)
The first inflation summit in the Chancellery did not bring any great results. That was also not to be expected. Only when it becomes clearer in the course of the year how big the energy and price crisis actually is should decisions be made.
It is to be hoped that many of the measures now being discussed will have been forgotten by then. In the run-up to the concerted action, the traffic light parties advanced with various peculiar proposals in order to make political capital out of the tense situation. The coalition has thus fueled completely false expectations.
Because politics can do nothing against inflation. Only the central bank can do that, and even that only to a limited extent in times of disrupted supply chains and energy shortages. The federal government must therefore confine itself to cushioning the consequences of inflation in a targeted manner, instead of succumbing to the mistaken belief that state dirigisme and redistribution can achieve something in this crisis.
For example, the SPD used the inflation summit in the Chancellery to drum for higher taxes for the rich. The chief populist was SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert, who explained that simple incomes would have to pay higher health insurance contributions because the FDP did not want any excess profit tax. The fact that the financial gaps in health insurance are due to the spending policy of the grand coalition is something that Kühnert studiously concealed while suppressing the cause-and-effect principle.
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The Greens, in turn, are opposed to the dismantling of cold progression. “Tax cuts” cannot be afforded now. This is an interesting framing, because the reduction of the cold progression is only a compensation for the burdens that have already occurred: employees pay higher taxes due to inflation, although they no longer earn any real money. If you seriously want this in the current situation, please communicate it that way.
FDP Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner even justifies his entire financial policy with the fight against inflation. But his approach to pursuing a business-friendly policy in an era of scarcity is correct – the second part of his strategy is dubious: Lindner will hardly dampen inflation with lower government spending.
Instead of pouring out the subsidy watering can, as in the case of the second relief package, the traffic light in the coming autumn must specifically help people who are struggling to survive as a result of higher prices. Lower incomes must be able to defer their gas bills, and in extreme cases they must be temporarily relieved by a gas price cap. Much more is not in the power of politics.
More: “No gas, no beer”