As part of the big German government 'save-the-Earth' package that the Merkel team (the coalition of the CDU-CSU-SPD parties) reached....the money amount for the next four years is forty billion Euro that the government will devote to this effort.
When the smoke had cleared, the opposition parties (the Greens and Linke) stood, along with most all pro-environmentalists and were shocked at the 'minuscule' amount. In their mind, this needed to be a monumental amount. Few would say an amount in public, but you get the idea it needed to be in the range of 300 to 400 billion Euro for the four-year period. Why? Well, that's not exactly clear....maybe it's just the more-money-more-stuff thinking.
So we can ask the question....why couldn't Chancellor Merkel go toward the 300 to 400 billion Euro, and it's a curious situation that has occurred. There is a bit of history attached.
You see....virtually every time some emergency or chaotic event occurred....the Merkel method for pleasing the public and upset politicians....was to lay down some funding.
When the refugees started to roll in around 2014, and the German states demanded more cash to cover expenses....the Chancellor had to package up a couple of billion Euro per year for those expenses, and that continues on....even today.
When the path for refugees was determined to be Turkey.....she approached the EU and created a 'slush' fund to pay Turkey to halt the path....which involves the EU paying Turkey around 3 billion Euro a year. A large chunk of that money, comes from the German government.
When Germans perceived more crime, which might have related to the migrant crisis, the Chancellor agreed to fund more cops (10,000 for the sixteen states are to be hired), and that involved more federal funding.....which the Chancellor agreed to.
The railway infrastructure crisis? Billions have been promised in the past year or so....to cover that expense.
The nursing crisis? Billions had to be flushed into some package to hire up a fair number of non-Germans for those jobs.
When the decision came to shutting down the nuke plants early, and they handed the bill over to the government.....who paid? Well.....those 'clean-up billions' came out of the general budget.
When the decision was made to shut down the coal plants and coal fields in three regions of Germany early....a bill was prepared and billions were set to flow for that expense.
Money set up to convince African countries to hold back their migration folks attempting to go to Germany? Yes, that was another package of state funding.
Cash to loan Greece because of their financial mess from six years ago? Yeah, that was another money package for the Germans to fund.
The EU money necessary after the UK leaves? Well, that's discussed a good bit by journalists, and it's figured to be around 10 billion Euro a year extra.....that Germany has to find and funnel toward the EU requirement....to make up for the Brit loss.
So you come to Trump and military spending. The Germans (almost a decade ago) signed up to say they'd pay 2-percent of the GDP toward their military. They've yet to do it. That's about the only thing which the Chancellor hasn't fixed up a package for, and frankly....it's not a priority with them.
The pension crowd who are border-line welfare cases? The welfare crowd complaining over crappy state money allocations? They are standing in line and expecting something to be done over their problems.
The Merkel team has laid out a ton of cash over the past decade to cover various problems and frankly doesn't have the 300 to 400 billion Euro that you might expect because they've already signed up for things. Raising taxes? They've already done that to some degree, and grasp that some companies aren't that secure in their business front. BREXIT on the horizon, and a predicted recession? This would not be the time to set up more taxation.
Maybe there is some honest criticism, but in some ways, the German government has crossed some bridges and burned them already.
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