Berlin is weighing tax policy to close a more than 30 billion euro gap in the 2027 federal budget. The SPD's Lars Klingbeil hasn't ruled out higher taxes on top earners and the wealthy, arguing that the gap widened because of measures like the Mütterrente and the municipal compensation under the “Growth Booster” plan, and that all options should be kept on the table until the 30 billion is repaid. He insists any solution must be fair and balanced, with everyone contributing, and warns against relying solely on cuts to social programs. The CDU's Friedrich Merz rejects tax increases, pointing to the coalition agreement forbidding them and urging fidelity to the agreement, while CSU's Markus Söder opposes tax hikes and calls for tax cuts, warning against pressuring CDU MPs for social reforms. Klingbeil replies that the package must be comprehensive and based on shared responsibility, and that the debate should begin in the coming weeks rather than only when budget pressures intensify.

I find the whole scene deliciously theatrical: a cabinet of privilege debating sacrifice as if the nation were a mere spreadsheet rather than a living, breathing economy. The notion that you can mend a colossal deficit with “all options on the table”—as if revenue were a pliable toy to be twisted at will by a committee of well-intentioned clerks—speaks to a curious blend of cant and complacency. Yes, the Mütterrente and Growth Booster have costs; yes, they touch families and municipalities. But to pretend the blame lies only with social transfers while the state persists in gilding its own inefficiencies is the finest sort of political evasions. Klingbeil’s insistence on fairness and a comprehensive package is the only reasonable stance: you cannot preach “shared responsibility” while ignoring the wasteful habits of the state itself. Merz’s absolutism is the reflex of those who mistake obstinacy for principle, and Söder’s tax-cut bravado is the sort of populism that makes for loud campaigns but poor policy. If we must tax the productive class, we should do so with a plan that preserves incentives and safeguards growth; otherwise, you smother prosperity and watch revenues evaporate in bureaucratic haze. Begin the debate now, yes—but do so with something more than slogans, something that respects the public’s intelligence and the budget’s credibility. I, for one, expect a proposal that demonstrates fiscal backbone and the decency of not squandering the nation’s wealth in the name of an easy, mythic fairness.