The state government is again defending its figures for a budget and speaks of hardship and pressure, and the opposition in the state parliament is once again clamoring about the plans. The taxpayers' association warns that it's high time to question the whole structure.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - The energy crisis, the rising prices and the burdens on the federal and state governments are causing the planning of the state budget to falter, according to the green-black coalition. "We will have to finance other parts of the relief package," said Baden-Württemberg Finance Minister Danyal Bayaz on Wednesday in the Stuttgart state parliament. The housing and citizen money would have to be borne by the state as well as the Southwest's share of the so-called 49-euro ticket with around 180 million euros a year and the costs of accommodating refugees.
Green parliamentary group leader Andreas Schwarz defended the green-black coalition in view of the recent changes in financial planning. "Never before have we discussed a budget that is characterized by it to such an extent that we don't know what is to come," he said at the budget debate. The autumn tax estimate was only presented after the introduction of the double budget for the years 2023/2024, and there was also an "epoch of uncertainty". This "changed some basic parameters for the budget again significantly," said Schwarz. The budget is a "work in progress," both Schwarz and Bayaz said.
CDU faction leader Manuel Hagel sees it similarly: "Nothing is more unpredictable than the dynamics of a crisis," he said. "That means for us: We have to put ourselves in a position to be able to react." Budgetary policy in times of crisis is always an "account with at least one unknown". However, the aid for the burdened companies is justified. The country is spending a lot of money, he said, and explained: "What the aid will cost us now will be far less than if entire sectors of the economy collapse - if deindustrialization in our country turns from a nightmare into reality." It must be clear that hardships will be cushioned. But the state cannot mitigate every hardship either.
The coalition had recently announced that it would incur new debts in order to deal with the crisis next year. Because of the foreseeable worsening of the economy, the government wants to take out new loans of more than one billion euros as part of the debt brake. According to the Ministry of Finance, this should strengthen the reserve in order to be able to compensate for further tax losses. This also gives the government leeway to put together an aid package itself.
On the other hand, as expected, the opposition factions did not leave a good hair on the figures presented by the coalition. The SPD accused the government of investing too little and in the wrong place. "The times are difficult, but the cash position is not bad," said SPD parliamentary group leader Andreas Stoch. "So it's simply wrong to always talk about the bad times when looking at the budget."
According to the most recent tax estimate alone, there would be an estimated 2.5 billion euros in additional tax revenue. The country has sufficient funds and must invest them in relief, support for children and young people and an investment program for companies, among other things. The current crisis is far more threatening to the economy than the pandemic was, said Stoch, and called for a "serious cash drop in which nobody tries to count this country poorer than it is".
Finance Minister Bayaz then accused Stoch of "dubious air bookings". "With the tax estimate, we can just about cope with the tax effects of the third relief package," said Bayaz.
For the FDP, the head of the parliamentary group, Hans-Ulrich Rülke, focused his criticism on the additional positions in the state companies. In 2011, the staff still had 37,089 positions, and in the coming year it will be around a third more. The development in the ministries themselves is particularly violent. The government headquarters, the state ministry, is a "shining negative example".
According to the Taxpayers' Association, the government needs to rethink its budget from the ground up. "The overall budget planning has actually been going in the wrong direction for some time. We have a structural problem in the budget," said country chief Eike Möller of the German Press Agency. He also complained that the country had been hiring more and more staff and would do so again in the new budget. Certain places are well justified. "But all in all, this means that the household is reaching the limits of its capacity."
He criticized that the country had prepared people for a turning point and announced unreasonable demands. "You would have liked to see that in the country," he said. "But we can't see a structural reorganization of the budget and that surprises me." Möller proposes a commission that scours the budget and examines which expenses are absolutely necessary and what can be dispensed with in these tougher times.
For the AfD, the previous draft budget and the new loans prove Bayaz' "lack of seriousness," as her parliamentary group leader Bernd Gögel said. Principles such as the debt brake apparently only apply to a limited extent in times of crisis. "This raises the not insignificant question of whether the state shouldn't prove its ability to act by complying with fixed rules, especially in times of crisis," said Gögel.
