There are amazing gaps in the debates in this campaign.

In the meantime we know almost everything about inappropriate laughter in the flood area, about pimped up CVs or even a little something about the amazing indulgence of the Hamburg authorities with the cum-ex deals of private banks.

But we hear almost nothing about pension policy, for example: Almost all experts agree that state pension provision will start to falter in ten to twenty years, but that is precisely why the parties do not want to worry their electorate in the programs.

Ralph Bollmann

Correspondent for economic policy and deputy head of economics and “Money & More” for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in Berlin.

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The lack of concrete messages makes one thing more difficult: a choice that is strongly oriented towards one's own material needs.

Actually, the “Wahl-O-Mat” of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, conceived in the first Merkel election in 2005 and refined more and more since then, should also help with this.

However, it has a construction problem that is inherent in the nature of the matter: What is not in the parties' election manifestos cannot be queried in such a question-and-answer game.

Wahl-O-Maten competition

In addition, there is another, very German problem: To make the voting decision all too obviously dependent on one's own wallet is widely considered to be crude. So it happens that in the 38 questions of the quasi-official Wahl-O-Mats there are only a few that are clearly aimed at economic interests. In the end, where the pecuniary arises, the question often aims at a moral one: the further development of Nord Stream 2 is ultimately about human rights policy, the minimum wage is about higher justice, the air traffic tax is about saving the planet.

The material is so underweighted that it sometimes distorts the results in bizarre ways. Those who vote for a liberal immigration or drug policy, for example, can easily get the Left Party recommended for election - simply because the economy plays a subordinate role and the Left Party upholds civil rights on paper, even if not every one of its regular voters among the SED Pensioners in the prefabricated building are happy - provided that the authoritarian part of the clientele has not migrated to the AfD long ago.

But how can voters orientate themselves to whom the economic basis is ultimately more important than the ideological superstructure?

There is nothing to be said against it if the unemployed surprisingly vote for a party that wants to cut their support, or if multimillionaires elect a representative who would like to take part of their wealth away from them: they just have to do it consciously and not out of a false awareness of their economic interests.

Lo and behold: there is no shortage of relevant competition to Wahl-O-Maten.

A choice app or at least a corresponding website is now available for almost every need - whether it is for farmers or for drivers, for taxpayers or property owners.

Consult a cross-cutting decision maker

With taxes, or more precisely: income tax, it is still relatively simple. The "Steuer-O-Mat", which the employer-related institute of the German economy has put online together with the tax declaration tool "Smartsteuer", is designed accordingly sparingly. After just three questions, he calculates the amount of the charge or discharge per year in euros and cents according to the program of the respective party - with a somewhat exaggerated accuracy, because none of the parties presents a fully worked out tax rate. In most cases, the result is not surprising: single high earners do best with the FDP, families with many children on low incomes are most likely to benefit from the Left Party's plans. Another tax tool of this kind, which is based on more abstract questions, is provided by the management consultancy EY.It does not calculate any tax relief, but rather determines which election program best suits the wishes of the voter.