Is it? There is a lot of historical spelling in Spanish, though not as much as English. German, on with the other hand, has its spelling routinely updated every few years.
Spanish is indeed somewhat more phonemic in spelling, even though it's not as good as Finnish, Turkish, or Serbo-Croatian.
That said, Spanish and German are both so much better than English that the difference between them can be disregarded in this context. The irony is that almost any major European language (with the notable exception of French) has better spelling than English; and even French, although it's horribly overcomplicated, is more consistent when it comes to reading.
The historical spelling is quite limited, and mostly for retro-compatibility. Spanish tries to be
understandable across a large number of countries and rules must accommodate old Spanish dating from the XV century.
