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A year ago, Finance Minister Scholz was considered a “saver.” Meanwhile, the FDP speaks of the “king of debt”. To this day, the Bundestag deals with the record budget and a bit about the election campaign.
An analysis by Thomas Kreutzmann, ARD capital studio
SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz is looking for the public. And this week, by virtue of his office, he has many opportunities to find her: until Friday, eyes in Berlin will always be on the Federal Minister of Finance, after all, a record federal budget will be approved.
And the Social Democrat hopes that the billions of aid for the economy hit by the pandemic or for the basic pension will always be attributed to him personally and to the SPD. The public personalizes politics and Scholz, the candidate for chancellor in the primary campaign, wants to benefit from it.
Without lack of self-confidence
With financial and economic skills, he wants to revive the SPD, which is suffering in the 15 percent poll coma. The party is persistently concerned about the misallocation of powers in areas that once brought Social Democrats like Helmut Schmidt or Gerhard Schröder to the Chancellery. Consequently, at the beginning of the domestic week in an interview with the Berlin “Tagesspiegel”, Scholz praised himself quite free of feelings with the words: “The most financially competent chancellor you can get is Olaf Scholz.” .
It’s doubtful this home week is really a purely publicity event. What would otherwise be boring for those not on the budget with the 3,200-page tome called the Federal Budget and hundreds of amendments, is a year before the next federal election, a political explosive.
Criticisms from the coalition partner
The coalition partner himself criticizes the technical weaknesses in the implementation of the Crown advances for the self-employed. November aid does not flow until January due to software problems. Union faction leader Ralph Brinkhaus rumbled into the cameras Monday: “Olaf Scholz had actually promised us more that he should go faster. And we won’t let him out.” Liquidity must be preserved and companies must not be forced to take “other measures”. Behind this is the threat: more short-term work or even layoffs will be attributed to the Federal Minister of Finance.
For the FDP, Scholz is the “king of debt”
Not even the opposition FDP has gone that far. For this reason, the liberals have fired at Scholz with a word that is supposed to permanently discredit him, even if he cannot really do anything about the economic and financial damage of the crown pandemic: “King of debt.”
In fact, no German finance minister has so far accounted for such a high level of new debt in budget plans as Scholz: 400 billion in two pandemic years or 180 billion in budget year 2021, which is now being negotiated. In the 2020 budget, 218 billion euros of new debt will be reported, but according to the current state, this year should not flow more than 170 billion.
However, these are record values. And political competitors like to remind you that the Social Democrat Scholz was once the heir to Schäuble and a staunch defender of black zero; after all, there was no new debt between 2014 and 2019.
A minister who makes everything possible
Scholz has moved away from seed savings by promoting multi-million dollar Social Democratic projects like the introduction of the basic pension. “Olaf Scholz has turned out to be the Federal Minister of Finance in recent months, who does everything possible, and that with new debts,” denounces the head of the Taxpayers Association, Rainer Holznagel. tagesschau.de.
He was a finance minister who never said “Stop!” shout. The minister kept saying that one should not save for the crisis. But you have to set priorities. “Not everything works out in the crisis. And a federal finance minister has to make that clear as a candidate for chancellor,” Holznagel said.
FDP budget expert Otto Fricke has a similar opinion. While Scholz created good framework conditions for the free economy as mayor of Hamburg, he is now subject to a “center-state vision.” Also due to the risk of interest rates rising, Scholz has to take precautionary measures by limiting expenses, so Fricke.
What the FDP politician thinks: The state is currently benefiting from lower interest rates: 20 years ago, the Federal Republic of Germany had to spend almost four times on servicing its debt as it does now: 40 thousand million euros instead of ten billion. But that could change again.
AfD criticizes “lack of transparency”
The AfD wants to deny Scholz seriousness. Peter Boehringer, chairman of the budget committee, accuses Scholz: “The budget is full of lack of transparency.” The AfD politician complains that a high overall additional spending of more than 35 billion euros has been recorded under the too general heading “In relation to Corona”. Not to mention, however, that the finance minister could not freely dispose of this money.
Rather, all ministries have to demonstrate the additional expenses related to the crown in a graduated procedure, and the budget committee would have to give its approval for all amounts over 100 million euros. Furthermore, the Committee on Budgets would have to agree in principle if the second half of this overall additional expenditure, that is, the second 17.5 billion euros, were to be spent.
The Ifo Institute praises Scholz
Scholz receives support from the director of the Munich Ifo Institute, of all places. Clemens Fuest says otherwise tagesschau.de: “Financial policy is generally correct. High debts are necessary to stabilize the economy today.” We expect the debt ratio to rise to 72 percent of gross domestic product by 2022. “That’s a lot, but still significantly less than other countries.” And less than we owed in debt after the financial crisis. “In this sense, it can be managed, says Fuest.
After the fall 2021 elections, the manager should no longer be called Olaf Scholz. So he wants to be chancellor. Or, more likely given the current state of affairs, he will oppose the SPD.
