One had to reckon with that.

After the third, a fourth relief package against the consequences of the energy crisis and inflation is now being discussed.

The justification is always the same and equally poor: "It's not enough." True to the motto of the little Häwelmann by Theodor Storm, who shouted "More, more!" when asked if he didn't have enough.

Rainer Hank

Freelance author in the business section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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The third package that was last agreed amounts to 65 billion euros.

Pensioners, students, families with children, poor and rich are served.

The race of the disadvantaged, who call for relief interventions (or whose advocates call for them), knows no break: "In order to cushion the worst of the worst, especially for people on low incomes, we have to be ready to step it up again as the crises progress." So spoke Most recently, Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD) opted for a fourth package.

"The experience of state aid in the corona pandemic has encouraged the sense of entitlement, according to which the state has a fundamental obligation to provide compensation if conditions deteriorate," writes Martin Hellwig, ex-director of the Max Planck Institute for Collective Goods in Bonn in an essay on “Gas Shortages and Economic Policy”.

While the state aid in the corona pandemic served to mitigate state measures (lockdown), today the effect of developments in Eastern Europe, for which the federal government bears no direct responsibility, is being compensated.

The Justemilieu's notorious attitude of entitlement says: I have a right to the status quo.

Should this deteriorate, regardless of who caused it,

Like the frightened citizens, the companies (BASF in particular) that previously became dependent on Russian gas without realizing the risks involved are also calling for help.

They, too, demand that the state crammed them out.

Little growth

All this is not for free.

The relief billions have to come from somewhere.

The German word for this is debt.

The finance minister has assured time and again that next year the constitution's debt brake will be adhered to, which stipulates that federal, state and local government budgets must fundamentally get by without loans, i.e. have to finance themselves through taxes and fees.

At most, debts of 0.35 percent of nominal gross domestic product are tolerated.

This corresponds to 17.2 billion euros of “permissible” new debt in the coming year and is not even enough for the third relief package of 65 billion.

The Minister of Finance says there is still "play" and that part of the money will be obtained from the massively earning electricity producers.

First "skim" (my new favorite word),

Is that bad?

Nope, say many contemporaries, including many economists.

After all, the debt is for a good cause, strengthens social cohesion in tense times and would benefit future generations, who, if in doubt, would prefer a debt crisis to a climate catastrophe.

In recent years, friends of debt have heard reassuringly from economists that as long as lending rates are lower than economic growth, there is no need to worry anyway because the debt will crumble by itself.