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Hanover (dpa / lni) - The debt clock to illustrate the liabilities of the State of Lower Saxony is approaching the mark of 70 billion euros.
This year, the debt level will grow by 35 euros every second, as the taxpayers' association announced in Hanover on Wednesday.
That's around three million euros a day.
In the year of the Corona crisis, however, the debts rose almost eight times as quickly - by 278 euros per second.
"The pandemic is causing the state debt to swell from 60 to 70 billion euros in just two budget years," said the state head of the taxpayers' association, Bernhard Zentgraf.
The association expects the state parliament's debt clock to reach 70 billion euros in July.
This increase was due to the emergency and had to be largely accepted, said Zentgraf.
However, the state budgets should not be financed permanently from loans.
The debt brake must be adhered to.
"Anyone who, like Prime Minister Stephan Weil, wants to make the regular loan financing of the budget socially acceptable again, basically wants to free himself from any fiscal constraints," Zentgraf criticized the SPD politician.
"The costs of such a policy based on the motto" Buy now - pay later "will then be borne by children and grandchildren who are not yet able to vote and thus have a say."
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Finance Minister Reinhold Hilbers said that the taking on of new debts was necessary "to effectively counter the corona crisis".
The CDU politician also stressed that he wanted to return to a budget without new debt as soon as possible.
"The times when it was a matter of distributing surpluses are over for now."
Hilbers also defended the debt brake.
He also reminded that the corona debts should be repaid from 2024.