If you enter Debt Ceiling Law Exceptions at Google, you arrive at the homepage of the German Government and will find a “pdf“ file.
Following it under “exception”, the following text pops up:
Art. 109 Abs. 3 S. 4, 115 Abs. 2 S. 2 GG say that a credit up to 0.35% of the nominal gross domestic product is exempt from the restriction regulation. Consequently, the Federal Government may indebt itself up to this sum.
Moreover, credits can be raised for cyclical reasons. In that case, the cyclical variations have to be symmetrically balanced between boosts and downturns.
Last not least, money can also be borrowed in case of natural catastrophes or exceptional emergencies that cannot be controlled by the state and have considerable influence on the federal financial situation.
The last two paragraphs arouse my special interest. It certainly does not call for a particular political talent to find an exceptional emergency as a reason for borrowing money.
Besides, I also find the amendment that credits can be raised for cyclical reasons and that cyclical variations have to be symmetrically balanced between boosts and downturns more cute than anything else. This sentence insinuates in an amusing way that boosts and downturns happen symmetrically (and rhythmically). Incidentally, that is something history has proved wrong.
Moreover, the implication of this sentence would be that you have to pay back the money you borrowed during a downturn as soon as the next boost happens. Wasn’t this what we always intended? – Yet we never did it! Because it cannot be done…
In my opinion, we could have done without this law, particularly because of the exception. Again, I feel I have been taken for a ride…
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
Is there a single politician in Germany who believes in this law? If so, how realistic is he? And are all the others hypocrites and liars? Or is it all a marketing trick? Do they just want to lull us with these kinds of laws? Quo vadis, democracy, politics, FRG?
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