Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his liberal-green Globalists have just slapped the German people in the face.
When money gets tight, the real priorities of a country’s government become clear.
In Germany’s case, Scholz and his coalition are taking money from the budget with one hand, and sending it to Ukraine with the other.
Germany’s finance ministry has imposed a ‘spending freeze’ on all federal ministries.
That escalates the budget crisis generated by a ruling by the country’s Constitutional Court that curtailed the ‘smart’ maneuver of using ‘Covid money’ to cover their climate alarmist policies.
That blew a €60 billion hole in the government’s spending capabilities.
Politico reported:
“The government is now bracing for the potential of far wider financial implications stemming from the ruling that may limit its ability to draw money from a variety of special funds that have been established to circumvent the country’s debt brake, which restricts the federal deficit to 0.35 percent of GDP, except in times of emergency.
In a letter to all ministries, State Secretary Werner Gatzer said the finance ministry is freezing spending “in order to avoid further upfront burdens on future financial years.” The step does not impact those financial commitments that have already been made, Kevin Kühnert, the secretary general of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), told public television on Monday.”
Lawmakers held a public hearing with legal experts on Tuesday morning to assess the impact.
“Although the €60 billion financial gap following last week’s court ruling theoretically stretches over several years, in practice the effect will be more immediate, Thiess Büttner, a professor from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, said in a to parliament ahead of Tuesday’s hearing. “There is a need for consolidation in the budget planning for the coming year of €52 billion,” he said.
FDP Finance Minister Christian Lindner argued last week that the constitutional court ruling does not justify suspending the debt brake. ‘We will have to make more effective policies with less money than in the past decade’, he said.”
Some more on the spending side want to scrape the debt brake altogether.
I don’t mean to suggest that budget cuts are necessarily bad, and in many cases the money cut would be used to finance a ‘sweeping agenda to accelerate the green transition’ – meaning wasted money in a nefarious goal.
But the freeze affects all Ministries, so one can bet important will be curtailed too. Why? They need money to… Ukraine.
German defense minister Boris Pistorius made an unannounced visit to Kyiv and unveiled yet another large military aid package for Ukraine. Belt tightening, yeah, but not there.
AFP reported:
“The German package — worth 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) and including four further IRIS T-SLM air defense systems as well as artillery ammunition — was unveiled by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, in Kyiv.
‘I am here again, firstly to pledge further support but also to express our solidarity and deep bond and also our admiration for the courageous, brave and costly fight that is being waged here’, Pistorius said earlier when he laid flowers at Maidan square in central Kyiv.
Zelensky earlier this week met the head of the Pentagon, who announced another $100 [million] in US military aid, and last week hosted UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who promised continued British backing.”
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