Government in Baden-Württemberg: Despite massive criticism – Green-Black pushes through budget – Baden-Württemberg

From red / dpa

07/21/2021 – 9:51 pm

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Stuttgart – The green-black coalition has brought its supplementary budget with new billions of debts despite the warning calls from the Court of Auditors and the opposition by the state parliament. The Greens and CDU voted with their majority in parliament on Wednesday for the budget, while the opposition from the SPD, FDP and AfD voted against.

The government of Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) is thus allowed to use the exception clause of the debt brake and take out new loans amounting to 1.2 billion euros. Green-Black wants to arm itself with the money for a fourth corona wave. Finance Minister Danyal Bayaz (Greens) said: “This government has decided not to blindly save into the crisis.”

Court of Auditors had expressed doubts

The audit office had expressed doubts on Monday whether the addendum complied with the state constitution. The SPD, FDP and AfD again accused the government in the state parliament of taking on new debts for no reason because they had sufficient reserves. The AfD has already filed a lawsuit against the budget, the FDP still wants to do so.

The liberals told the coalition that they were lying to the state parliament when they claimed that there was no money for the corona buffer despite reserves and leftovers of up to 20 billion euros. The announced lawsuit against the addendum was “a kind of self-defense against the extravagance of the government,” said the FDP financial expert Stephen Brauer. The coalition is hamstering credit rights in order not to have to save.

The AfD MP Rainer Podeswa said the AfD filed a lawsuit against the budget on Tuesday. The budget is obviously unconstitutional and “pure dumbing down of the citizens”. The SPD also made serious accusations against Green and Black. “It is a smoke candle budget,” said SPD finance politician Nicolas Fink.

The Greens defend the plans

For the Greens, the financial policy spokesman, Markus Rösler, defended the plans. The request of the Court of Auditors and the opposition to use the surplus from 2020 in the supplement could not be met by the coalition. So far, the surplus is only a forecast. “The Swabian housewife named Danyal Bayaz doesn’t spend any money if she doesn’t yet know how much she has.”

Bayaz declared that it was politically, economically and socially important to further contain this crisis. “Anything else would be negligent, anything else would take a possible fourth wave in autumn lightly.” Without new debt, the country would have had to forego any investments in the middle of one of the biggest crises. The alternative would have been a “super tough austerity program”. The Green politician promised: “We will use the money Corona-sharp or we will pay off.”

Meanwhile, the AfD accused the SPD and FDP of “hypocrisy” because in the debates they accused the government of inflating the government apparatus, but at the same time approving new posts for the state parliament. The finance committee recently agreed to create 41 new jobs in the state parliament. Podeswa suggested the chairmen of the SPD and FDP, Andreas Stoch and Hans-Ulrich Rülke: “Apply for a job in the state theater.” However, even the smallest opposition faction, despite its heavy losses in the state elections, also received 1.5 positions for more parliamentary advisors on this.

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