Good ideas fail because of the bureaucracy: this happens to Germany's citizens all the time.

In the past week, however, the federal government has also lost its way in the labyrinth of paragraphs.

And then strange ideas like a tank discount come up.

The goal is easy to explain: Germans are suffering from high fuel prices, Finance Minister Christian Lindner wants to relieve them.

Around half of the gas station price goes to the Treasury anyway, so he can give back a little money.

It should be done quickly so that people don't have to wait long.

So Lindner suggested a discount on the liter price, automatically deducted at the petrol station checkout.

Rarely have experts of very different political persuasions been so unanimous: the idea is useless.

The discount will not only be expensive.

It mainly benefits the rich, because they tend to drive more.

At the same time, it reduces the incentive to save fuel.

And to make matters worse, it could also happen that the gas stations simply raise their prices when the subsidy comes.

Then the planned discount becomes a subsidy for the oil companies.

It is interesting, however, how such a proposal still makes its appearance on the political stage.

That's because of the alternatives.

There is no shortage of other ideas to relieve the burden on citizens.

But every proposal is somehow difficult to implement, and that has a lot to do with bureaucracy.

The alternatives have flaws

For example, you could reduce VAT.

That wouldn't make much economic sense, but it would be better than the tank discount.

But part of the VAT goes to the states, so they would probably be against it.

And then comes the European Union: It bans low VAT rates on petrol and diesel.

So rather lower taxes?

Or increase the commuter allowance?

That would go through the tax offices, and in Germany they only deal with people who pay taxes.

So it was the poorest who fell through the cracks.

And if the state, conversely, increases the Hartz IV rates?

This helps the poorest in society, but not the lower middle class, where money is also tight.

For years, economists have rightly complained that working people with low salaries are sometimes worse off than Hartz IV recipients, partly because the rules from tax and social law do not go together properly.

Then there is the proposal to give all citizens an energy bonus, the same amount for each.

Unfortunately, Germany has no authority that could do this in a reasonable amount of time: the federal government does not have direct access to the municipalities, which are the only ones that all citizens know.

The tank discount shows what is going wrong in the administration

Germany's administration is not broken.

In 2020, the civil service had more staff than at any other time in the past 20 years.

That would be the best prerequisites for powerful authorities.

But no matter what politics wants to do, there is always a law somewhere that makes it difficult to find a sensible solution.

And above all, the fundamental question hovers: Why does the state assume that it has to protect its citizens from all the evils of the world - and that it can?

The idea of ​​a tank discount reveals what is going wrong in the German administration: The state wants to be able to do everything, but makes life difficult for itself.

And what comes out in the end, no one finds that meaningful anymore.

As different as the crises of recent years were, they all had one thing in common: they would have been easier to deal with if the state had been streamlined and modernized.

That is why the federal and state governments not only have to react to the current crises from now on, but also urgently have to put the administrative structures in order.

This is complicated, but one of the most important measures against the next crisis.