Budget dilemma

The prisoner's dilemma is when you don't know whether to keep quiet or to rat out your partner in crime before he rats you out. The budget dilemma is similar. Almost everyone would benefit over the long term if there were balanced budgets, but there's incentive on nearly every level to try to squeeze out as much as possible for one's own special interests in the short term. ANO is of course among those screaming the loudest about the draft 2026 proposal of Finance Min. Zbyněk Stanjura of ODS, which calls for a deficit of Kč 286bn, but ANO's MPs will also be among those voting with Stanjura later this month to give up billions of crowns each year by making sales of companies entirely tax-free. The short-term gain to people like Petr Kellner Jr. and Andrej Babiš (if he decides to sell Agrofert) will be too much to resist. Budget responsibility requires a social consensus that everyone must give something up. It can't possibly work if the richest and most powerful people see no dilemma at all.