No finance minister likes to be proclaimed debt king.
Christian Lindner is unlucky to have to finance two crises at the same time: the consequences of the pandemic and those of the Russian attack on Ukraine.
Nevertheless, he wants to comply with the debt rule in the Basic Law from next year.
To this end, the coalition is shifting planned expenditures to sub-budgets.
She also changed the posting rule for this.
For the calculation of the new borrowing, it is no longer decisive when funds from the climate fund will flow out.
Rather, borrowing is simulated in advance this year, which cannot be saved anyway.
With the supplementary budget that the cabinet intends to adopt on Wednesday, the reported new debt will rise to almost 140 billion euros.
This does not take into account the "special fund" of the Bundeswehr, which ultimately consists of credit authorizations.
According to the government's new system, these 100 billion euros would also have to be taken into account.
This (unfortunately) leads to record new debt.