Much of the Quality of Public Finances depends on how efficiently and for what purpose public funds are spent. As investments in the future always struggle to compete in the political arena, an indicator of which spending not only benefits the immediate present can help to improve this quality. Twenty years ago, FiFo developed the ‘WNA budget’ exactly for this purpose. Now, in a modernised, contemporary form, Albrecht Bohne, Friedrich Heinemann, Thomas Niebel and WNA-inventor Michael Thöne present the ‘future ratio’ as a new quality compass for the German federal budget in Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik. Cleverly applied, the future ratio can also help to monitor and control a reformed debt brake.