What do you think of Germany’s resounding rejection of socialism?
Posted Saturday, April 10, 2010 by admin
In the midst of its deepest postwar recession, Germany elected a conservative-free market government Sunday. Maybe the reports of capitalism’s demise have been premature.
As we went to press, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party seemed poised to garner 33.7% of the votes, the second-worst result in their history. But this would still put them some 10 percentage points ahead of the Social Democrats, who had their worst election night in 60 years.
The big winner was the pro-business Free Democratic Party, with a record 14.6% of the vote. This will be enough to end what has been an unnatural alliance between the country’s two main political rivals and secure a majority for the center-right coalition. It also gives Mrs. Merkel the opportunity to do the tax-cutting and deregulating that she campaigned on four years ago, assuming she still has the courage of those convictions.
The Free Democrats campaigned on a €35 billion tax cut combined with a radical simplification of one of the most complex tax codes in the world. The current rates, which rise gradually from 14% to 45%, would be replaced with three brackets of 15%, 25% and 35%. The proposal has come to be known as the “beer-coaster reform”—as in, you could fit the whole tax return on a beer coaster. The reform would make Germany’s tax code among the most competitive and transparent in the industrialized world.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438884290190804.html
That’s kind of the problem with Americans – we want to sweep around everyone elses front porch before we sweep our own.
they are waking up
sounds good to me*****************************
Europe and the UK are rejecting the Social Democrats hence the Right Wing Parties gaining more power.
People are fed up of Liberals caring more about others than their own people, illegal immigration is bringing them all down and this is only since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the massive influx of Eastern Europeans which they can’t control.
They will learn as we have. Two weeks ago Norway had their elections. Soundly rejected the conservative agenda, tax cuts etc.
Hopefully Germans hold up some Anti socialism signs when Obama speaks there in Denmark about the Olympics and he sees them and takes some notes. God bless.
Interesting. I wonder if the Taliban and Al Qaida threats helped push the voters in that direction.