Before the federal election of February 2025, the CDU and CSU promised in their program: Wir halten an der Schuldenbremse des Grundgesetzes fest. We are holding to the debt brake of the Basic Law. A month after the election, the party leader Friedrich Merz, not yet chancellor, led a reform of the debt brake through the outgoing Bundestag. It passed on 18 March 2025. In the ZDF Politbarometer poll that week, 73 percent of respondents said that the Union and Merz had deceived the voters. Among the Union’s own supporters, 44 percent said so.