At the end of December, Hessen had around 3.9 billion euros more in the till than expected.

The good news from finance minister Michael Boddenberg (CDU) not only made the opposition happy.

Several MPs criticized this as a grandiose misjudgment before the state parliament passed the budget for 2023 and 2024 on Wednesday with the votes of the black-green coalition.

Ewald Hetrodt

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung in Wiesbaden.

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Even Boddenberg has never been so clearly wrong with his calculations in the past as this time.

Anyone who talks like that is actually criticizing the civil service, replied the Union politician.

When planning the budget, of course, he had to rely on the official tax forecasts that were presented to him.

Incidentally, the volatilities of the past three years are unique in Germany's history.

The opposition also took offense at the additional plans with which the black-green government coalition is responding to the increased financial leeway in the short term.

The SPD has long been demanding that primary school teachers be placed in a higher salary group, said deputy parliamentary group leader Marius Weiß.

But this revaluation must take place immediately and not gradually, as planned, until 2028.

31-euro ticket for the needy

The Free State of Bavaria charges more for its teachers, Weiß stated.

In view of the geographical proximity, this will particularly affect Hesse.

The assumption that there will be a mass exodus of educators is nonsense, Boddenberg replied.

If the first allowance is paid on August 1, 2023, this will be an important signal for the job holders, but also for potential student teachers.

Weiss also referred to the Bavarian state government with regard to local public transport.

The 29-euro ticket she announced for pupils, students and trainees is valid throughout Germany.

On the other hand, the 31-euro ticket for the needy announced by Transport Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (The Greens) is only valid within Hesse.

In the outskirts of the federal state, this means that the ticket can no longer be used beyond the district border.

Weiß doubted that the amount of 15 million euros planned by the state government would cover the costs.

The opposition is only ever asking for more money, stated the parliamentary group leader of the Greens, Mathias Wagner.

But it offers “no conceptual alternative in terms of content”.

The opposition's criticism was borrowed from the Olympic idea of ​​“higher, faster, stronger”, said the eco-party's budget spokesman, Frank Kaufmann.

That is not a good motto in financial policy.

Kaufmann, who gave the last budget speech of his career on Wednesday, reminded that the double budget will still apply if the newly elected state government takes office after the state elections at the beginning of next year.

The green zero

FDP and AfD complained that debts of around 210 million euros would be taken on this year.

The budgetary spokeswoman for the Free Democrats, Marion Schardt-Sauer, said that the reserves are more than sufficiently filled so that future generations do not have to borrow money at high cost.

While the black zero says goodbye, the green zero shows itself in all its glory.

"The green zero stands for zero improvements in the country's infrastructure and energy supply." Al-Wazir and his ministry are running down the substance of the Hessian infrastructure.

Schardt-Sauer complained that although the CDU and Greens had submitted more than 100 amendments to their own draft budget, there was no initiative to stabilize road construction, promote inner cities or tackle the switch to hydrogen as an alternative energy source.

Instead, black and green put large sums of money into the construction of double structures.

In particular, the green-led ministries have massively increased staff over the past nine years and created more than a thousand new jobs.

That is an increase of almost a third of the total staff of the ministries.