The sentence in the election manifesto of the CDU / CSU seems quite clear: "We will gradually abolish the solidarity surcharge for everyone and at the same time relieve small and medium-sized incomes with income tax." Only the word "step by step" and the resulting puzzling subsequent "simultaneously" are irritating. .
Step by step at the same time?
The entrepreneurs will also ponder what it means that they should be relieved, but “in perspective”: so maybe not at all?
The doubts threaten to turn into criticism after Armin Laschet has established that there is initially no scope for tax relief.
Even Friedrich Merz put a brake on hopes.
Is this the lesson from his beer mat, on which the tax return should fit?
Or did the Union jump as a beer mat to end up as a package insert?
What about the state treasury after Corona?
The CSU must have worried, especially since it is more adept at following a powerful message with a content that is not quite as powerful.
So far, the Union has had no problems with it, because it wanted to let the experience of the past few years speak for itself: when the economy is booming, the necessary tax revenues come naturally.
The CDU and CSU do not know, although they govern, how things are actually going with the corona-contaminated state treasury in autumn.
From the Seeon Abbey, there was a loud assurance that the election program was valid, but then Markus Söder also pointed out that only an “opening financial balance sheet” after the election would show what was feasible.
Some voters will ask themselves: yes, what now?
After years of lavish government revenues (and no less lavish promises) there is a lot to be said for relieving the burden on citizens and companies.
But there is also a lot to suggest that not everything is available at the same time: Corona debts, black zero, tax cuts, investment program, maternal pension.
For the time being, the Union is only clear by rejecting green-red-red tax increases.
Everything else fits on an FDP beer mat.