Germany’s Filibuster

For decades, the filibuster has paralyzed American politics. In the U.S. Senate, individual senators can stall a bill by refusing to end debate. Overcoming this blockade requires a supermajority of 60 votes, instead of the usual 51. In theory, the filibuster is meant to promote continuity and broad, bipartisan compromises. It aims to involve the opposition, providing an incentive for constructive cooperation. In practice, however, the filibuster achieves the opposite. Instead of bipartisan compromises, it promotes blockades. Instead of continuity, it leads to paralysis and frustration. The Senate has degenerated into a “dadaist nightmare“. The resulting legislative failure is one cause of the authoritarian radicalization of the Republican Party, enabling Trumpism.

Fifteen years ago, Germany passed a balanced budget amendment to the constitution, the Debt Brake. In doing so, Germany created its own filibuster — in the worst sense of the word. Art. 109(3) of the Basic Law, Germany’s constitution, limits the federal deficit to 0.35% of GDP. Only in exceptional cases does the provision allow more leeway. The government relied on this exception during the COVID-19 pandemic, for example. Beyond exceptional circumstances, any deficit exceeding the threshold — for instance, for investments in education, renewable energy, or defense — necessitates a constitutional amendment. To pass, constitutional amendments require the approval of two-thirds of the members of the Bundestag and two-thirds of the votes in the Bundesrat. The government relied on this route to create a special fund for Germany’s armed forces, the Bundeswehr, for example.

In practical and political terms, the Debt Brake will bring similarly catastrophic consequences as those of the filibuster in the USA. Like the filibuster, the Debt Brake rewards political obstruction. The logic behind this is simple. Voters tend to punish the government for the country’s problems. This creates an incentive for the opposition to torpedo problem-solving: in the zero-sum game of political competition, one party benefits from the losses of the other. This applies at least to a certain extent even in a multiparty system like Germany’s. The filibuster in the USA and the Debt Brake in Germany give the opposition the tools to act upon these destructive incentives effectively.

Political obstruction leads to frustration. Frustration undermines trust in democratic institutions, promotes political radicalization, and fuels longings for strongmen like Donald Trump. The Trumpists happily accept this gift, using their newfound power for further obstruction and setting off a downward spiral for democracy.

Like the filibuster, the Debt Brake only restricts legislative action, but not legislative inaction — regardless of whether state action is warranted. In times of rapid change and global polycrisis, this preference for standstill is toxic. It stifles necessary societal adaptation processes, from the energy transition to integration and education initiatives to housing construction.

Proponents of the Debt Brake justify this preference by referring to the protection of future generations and their democratic self-determination. Ironically, like the filibuster, the Debt Brake endangers exactly what it supposedly protects. In a truly paternalistic manner, the Debt Brake narrows the concept of sustainability exclusively to the deficit.

Future generation’s democratic self-determination, however, is not defined by a single financial metric. Instead, future democratic leeway and prosperity result from the totality of all circumstances. If future generations ‘save’ 10 billion in interest payments per year but experience additional climate damages of 50 billion annually, it seems implausible to speak of an expansion of their opportunities.

Those genuinely concerned about the interests of future generations might expand on the Federal Constitutional Court’s recognition of the state’s obligation to take climate action or contemplate strengthening young people’s weight in the political process through family voting rights.

Granted, not all societal challenges need to be solved with money. Moreover, the government could undoubtedly also stay clear of the Debt Brake by increasing state revenues to fund necessary investments. Although these objections have theoretical appeal, they ignore the political economy. If investments for the energy transition must be pre-financed through taxes, for example, Germany will simply march into the climate abyss before the investments materialize. Practically, a decision for ‘fiscal discipline’ is therefore a decision against our future.

But even if one doesn’t want to let reality spoil theory, debt financing remains a valuable instrument that should be accessible within the ordinary legislative process. Debt financing enables active demand restructuring and liquidity transformation. Again, the energy transition provides an apt example. First, it probably requires a state-induced shift in demand from consumption to investments for the transition to be fast enough. Second, recent estimates show that climate protection can economically ‘pay off’ for larger nation-states even if they act unilaterally. Thus, even in purely fiscal terms, the energy transition largely becomes a mere liquidity problem that can be bridged by debt without tearing apart democratic institutions. Grotesquely, it is more than plausible that long-term national debt will be higher because we are ‘avoiding’ debt today.

Objections based on Germany’s economic capacity are unfounded. First, demand-structuring policies and liquidity transformation prove to be valuable instruments regardless of economic capacity. Most importantly, there is neither structural nor current capacity overload. Germany is slipping economically. The EU Commission has just called for higher public investment. Beyond official unemployment figures, there is a “silent reserve” of nearly 3.2 million people who would generally like to work but are currently unavailable. The U.S., with its much more expansive fiscal policy, is recording significantly higher growth rates. Even if one generally sees a relevant risk of capacity overload, it is not clear why the inert process of constitutional amendments would be more apt than the much more agile ordinary legislative process. Above all, however, the Debt Brake does not even consider the country’s economic capacity as a relevant metric: exceptions are defined as deviations from a “state of normalcy”, without any assessment of this state.

Like the filibuster, the Debt Brake leads to absurd evasive maneuvers detrimental to the transparency and quality of governance and legislation. To avoid the filibuster’s hurdles, comprehensive legislative initiatives like the historic Inflation Reduction Act are shoehorned into reconciliation, a special parliamentary procedure. Reconciliation only allows for budgetary legislation; legislators must therefore achieve their objectives by relying on taxes and subsidies. Often, however, mandates, prohibitions, or the creation of institutions would be more appropriate. The Debt Brake triggers an equally problematic, albeit opposite reaction. It creates incentives to leverage public funds privately, enter public-private partnerships, or tinker with tax depreciation — even when direct state investments would be preferable. It creates incentives to pile up debt during exceptional periods or to hide it through privatizations and outsourcing. These incentives have a real-world impact. For example, the federal government is currently considering replacing grants to the federally owned Deutsche Bahn AG (Railroad) and Autobahn GmbH (Highway Management) “through particularly attractive loans as a financial transaction“. The government hopes this will create investment leeway compatible with the Debt Brake. Like the filibuster, the Debt Brake prompts the legislature to rely on measures that may be ineffective, expensive, or simply nonsensical.

Filibuster and Debt Brake contribute to legislative failure on both sides of the Atlantic. This failure is one of the causes of anti-democratic tendencies. The developments of recent years in the USA should serve as a warning to everyone in the democratic spectrum. Those who, in light of these developments, prioritize a symbolic balanced budget over addressing the real challenges of the 21st century are paving the way for German Trumpists. The European election was just a warning shot.