The different positions of the three parties were pieced together in the exploratory paper in such a way that they neutralize each other.
(Photo: imago images / Mike Schmidt)
The concentrated financial expertise sat at the exploratory negotiating table. In addition to Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, there are two more politicians who both absolutely want to be his successors: Christian Lindner and Robert Habeck. In addition, the long-standing NRW Finance Minister Norbert Walter-Borjans.
Measured against this level of expertise, there was frighteningly little that came out of finance and budget policy. Sure, the positions of Red-Green and the FDP are like fire and water. The art of compromise was particularly difficult in this case. The fact that you pulled yourself together so quickly deserves respect.
However, the different positions were pieced together in such a way that they neutralize each other instead of complementing each other in a meaningful way. If the results of the coalition negotiations in financial policy turn out to be as poor as the exploratory paper suggests, then they will hardly move the country forward.
When it comes to financing, the traffic light simply didn’t make a decision at all. And in tax policy, the total blockade of the past 20 years will continue. The traffic light in financial policy threatens to start not as a break-new, but as a standstill coalition, as GroKo 2.0.
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In particular, the FDP achieved a brilliant achievement in selling the tax policy chapter. The liberals pat their shoulders for preventing the worst. There will be no wealth tax or other tax increases for high earners.
However, not a single tax will be lowered, as the FDP had called for. Exactly this tax policy stalemate already existed under the grand coalition with the Union, and the FDP rightly criticized it. And now she’s doing the same thing herself?
The FDP cannot be satisfied
To raise the solos for the ten percent of top earners is a breach of all election promises, an extra burden for many partnerships and constitutionally dubious.
But there is not a word in the exploratory paper on the solidarity surcharge. Instead, one waits for the constitutional court ruling. The claim of a traffic light, however, cannot be serious to continue to surrender itself to Karlsruhe in terms of tax policy. The FDP must therefore continue to push for relief in the coalition negotiations.
At the same time, you don’t have to be a communist to be bothered by gaps in justice in the German tax system like the SPD and the Greens. Whoever inherits a house pays inheritance tax. If you inherit 300 houses, you don’t pay any.
And why is the sale of real estate still tax-free after ten years? Such questionable tax loopholes for the wealthy are not only unjust, they violate fundamental taxation principles. Closing them would be good governance. But the traffic light does not want to eliminate these weak points either.
In terms of budget policy, the self-proclaimed “break-up coalition” is proceeding according to the same pattern as its predecessor government. It is as specific as possible in the case of projects that cost money. And at most vague when it comes to the question of where she wants to save.
Ten billion are directly planned for the pension. In terms of revenue, it is hoped that there will be additional revenue through a global minimum tax – which may come sometime in the distant future.
The explorers even claim in all seriousness that their planned billions in spending can be financed under the debt brake. This is brazen window dressing.
The real break in budget policy has long since taken place. Under the guise of the pandemic, Olaf Scholz topped up a climate fund with corona debts and thus abused the exceptional situation to create a thick cushion in another political field. That should be a warning to the FDP: Scholz presents himself as a solid housekeeper, but in truth he does not shy away from such sleight of hand.
Further dam breaks threaten
This first breach of the dam is likely to be followed by others. The explorers are discussing whether they should build up a mega-reserve in the last exceptional year of the debt brake, tinker with the calculation methods of the debt brake or build shadow budgets. Gladly provided with the murderous argument: The state, that’s all of us!
If the negotiators took this sentence seriously themselves, they would not be discussing this voodoo financial policy. No citizen understands such financial acrobatics.
If the traffic light needs money, it must either save elsewhere in the budget, bring the bad news to the public that social security contributions will rise, or convince the Union to join in reforming the debt brake. Everything else is not progressive, but rather intransparent – and politics of yesterday.
More: Overall calculation instead of tight deadlines: Traffic light wants more pragmatic climate targets