The state governments also want to be as inventive as the federal government is with the debt brake.
They, too, indulge in creative bookings, secondary budgets and constitutional contortions.
After Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia is now trying its luck.
It is declaring an emergency that may – and just a few days ago – did not exist.
In Mainz they were even bolder.
In order to be able to take over the old debts of the municipalities, the constitution was quickly changed: the debt brake does not apply in this case.
Hesse failed before the state court to smuggle a corona special fund past the debt brake.
Classics of sustainability
All of this happens with a broad majority, whether under black-green or red-green-yellow direction.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, the government even got the votes of the CDU opposition.
This is only possible because the debt brake - actually a classic of sustainability - has only a few advocates and has become an annoying institution in times of crisis.
Since the federal and state governments have such high revenues, i.e. leeway, as never before, the governments are giving themselves bad marks.
Why is their ingenuity directed at circumvention, not at observance of a commandment proudly written into the constitutions year and day ago?
Then the debt brake would be more than just a brake on incurring debt.