Relief is the word of the hour. From the “traffic light” government to the Union, politicians have strained the seductive-sounding term. But where it says relief, there is often a burden in it.
The taxpayer bears the weight of the “relief packages”.
Beatrice Achterberg, editor of the NZZ in Germany
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What was “We can do it” with Angela Merkel is “We relieve you” with the traffic light coalition. Olaf Scholz internationalizes the formula for the song line, “You’ll never walk alone”. The verb “to hook” is now also part of the Chancellor’s phrase repertoire. Finance Minister Christian Lindner, in turn, speaks of a “massive package for relief” that should benefit society as a whole.
Endless relief
The state shows itself as a superhero bursting with power who wants to take the burden off the heavily laden shoulders of the citizens. That means no one has to bear the effects of the crisis and war alone. According to the dictionary, relief means liberation from a “stressful, depressing or undesirable condition”. However, the current burden of inflation and rising energy costs is homegrown. They are also responsible for those politicians who now generously want to free the population from it.
“Relief package three” is due this week. After one-off benefits such as the “energy price flat rate”, the housing allowance and the nine-euro ticket for everyone, pensioners and students are now also being considered. They were mostly neglected in the previous packages. If the federal government keeps up its pace, the ninth or tenth relief package could be in place by Easter. Whether it will take care of the crèche children or the single parents? After all, every group in the republic has to be appeased, at least for a short time.
The “relief packages” are nasty euphemisms. They cover up an unpleasant fact: that the one-time payments and special discounts are paid for and shouldered by the working population themselves. The burden-carrying pack mule is the citizen himself – and that in a country that imposes record-high taxes and duties on its employees and entrepreneurs anyway.
“Relief” ultimately means redistribution. The state doesn’t give gifts, it just continues to give away what others have worked out beforehand. Even if editorial offices, including the NZZ, partially adopt this formulation of the federal government, it deserves criticism: the relief of one is the burden of the other.
Tax cuts instead of Scholz phrases
Also, both distributors and recipients of state winning tickets should not be mistaken: the relief lottery will not work forever. The one-time payments and rebates are temporary carrots. Once they have expired, both some politicians and many consumers clamor for more, and inflation is not long in coming. So the republic degenerates from a performance society to a raffle society.
Both linguistically and politically, however, ideas for sustainable solutions have a supply problem. Only Minister of Finance Lindner wants to counteract cold progression with the help of the “Inflation Compensation Act”. However, the draft of the FDP politician is opposed to a mass of temporary measures and demands for further “relief” – demanded by social associations, the Green party leadership and also by the Union, which is promoting a one-off payment of 1000 euros for families.
There are hardly any appeals to lower the electricity tax or value added tax. Real “relief packages” could be put together here, because the effect would actually be permanent.
The energy crisis is largely self-inflicted, caused in the Merkel era but knowingly continued by the traffic light government. No amount of “relief packages” and Scholz phrases will be able to cushion the effects of rising prices – especially since there is stubborn resistance to the continued operation of nuclear power plants, which could lower energy prices. But perhaps the rejection of the SPD and the Greens will melt away once a more streamlined term has been found for the extension of the term. How about the “Good Energy Law”?