Berlin
Angela Merkel - foto Wikipedia - א (Aleph)
Many are prophesizing an age of austerity for Germany’s poorest citizens and this has set the scene for fresh conflict in amoung Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU + FDP ruling coalition.
Many demonstrators have been on Berliner streets this summer against plans by by the Merkel center-right government to cut billions of Euros on the unemployment insurance without imposing a similar burden on the rich – ‘make the rich pay’ – is becoming a popular and arguably diffiucult logical answer to these drastic welfare cutbacks.
Recent polls have indicated that there is a great deal of public unease and disagreement about recent welfare cuts – this has put wind in the sails of a resurgent opposition which have called for higher taxes for richer Germans 0 which oddly has been supported by some prominent and principled wealthy Germans.
Centrist voters in the regional elections next year will need some new imitative from the right-wing coalition – some populist content – but without alienating the party’s right wing.
Recent public opinion surveys do not augur well for Merkel and her associates and indicate that if a national vote were held today the left opposition would send Merkel and her allies out of office. Presently Ms Merkel has even lost her majority in the upper house of parliament after a major defeat in a regional election in May.
They need something to make themselves seem more popular than they actually are an this could be the best arguments in favor of tax increases for the rich.
When the former CDU Chancellor Kohl left his Berlin office in 1998, the standard tax rate for top earners was 53 % and it is presently 42 %, so even a token increase would not mean destitution for the wealthy.
However if she does plan to traverse this ‘tax-increase-for-the-rich’ course it will invariably set her on a collision course with her coalition partner, the very ‘pro-business’ –and by definition ‘pro-entrepreneur’ and pro-profit Free Democrat Party /FDP led by foreign minister Westerwelle.
His last campaign promise for tax cuts in the 2009 German federal election won him a record number of votes and it would be an embarrassment for him now to hand this all back to Merkel so that her party can survive the next election.
This is looking in fact like a no-win situation for both parties and probably the CDU/CSU will railroad the legislation through – which is their wont – in spite of FDP protests.
Tags: Merkel to raise taxes, richest Germans, tax-increase-for-the-rich, ‘make the rich pay’
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