Friday, November 9, 2018

Budget Story

It's a page three type story, and probably 90-percent of Germans won't even care.....but N-TV (our German commercial news network) pointed out today that the Bundestag wrapped up the budget battle (really between the CDU, SPD and Merkel). 

The 2019 budget?  356.4 billion Euro (13 billion more than last year). A debt issue?  Well...yeah, they actually had to approve a waiver for the sixth consecutive year. 

What are the key observations?  The German military got 43.2 billion Euro more than the previous year (to cover maintenance, purchase of ships, and some new helicopters).  The Ministry of Development also got a bit more money.  There's six billion Euro extra in the Labor and Social Security budget.....which is going to some work-training projects for Hartz IV (welfare folks)....in hopes they can get people certified for some craft and thus employed  The 'kid' benefit for families?  It's supposed to go up as well.

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