Germany stands at a crossroads where budget arithmetic and political conscience collide. The question on the table is whether to tighten the reins on those who can most easily bear the weight of extra fiscal burden—the top earners and the wealthy—to fill a looming 30-billion shortfall in 2027. The social democrats gesture toward a readiness to tax the successful if necessary, while the great coalition parties plead for sticking to a script of tax relief for the many and restraint in the pursuit of revenue. The developing drama exposes a fundamental truth about modern governance: once the state claims the role of solvency archetype, it seduces itself into believing that money can be conjured by decree rather than grown by freedom, enterprise, and the lawful order that respects dispersed knowledge.

Let us be blunt. The impulse to “tax the rich” as a catch-all remedy for deficits is a temptation born of the illusion that government can command prosperity by financial rhetoric alone. Tax rates, especially on the successful, are not neutralities; they are incentives that shape decisions, investments, and the very location of innovation. The more the state invites tax-based redistribution as a primary tool of budget balancing, the more it invites capital flight, avoidance, and misallocation. The outcry that the German economy is overburdened by taxes in OECD comparisons is not merely a matter of numbers; it is a warning about how quickly the system substitutes political intention for economic reality, how easily the tax code becomes a guidebook for bureaucratic prudence rather than a framework that respects the spontaneous order emergent from free decision.

To imagine that the coalition can simultaneously pledge tax relief for the lower and middle income brackets, and also craft a stable path by extracting more from those with the means to relocate or restructure their affairs, is to test the boundaries of credulity. The notion that higher earners should bear more only to finance broader entitlements rests on a fragile premise: that the state can know, with centralized certainty, which entitlements are essential and how to price them without distorting incentives. The knowledge problem, the failure of any planner to possess full information about all uses of capital, labor, and time, defeats such assurances. The only enduring way to secure prosperity is to create an environment where decisions are made as close as possible to the people who bear the consequences—where prices, profits, and losses reflect real conditions, not political forecasts.

I would urge Germany to resist the reflex to widen the tax spine as a solution to fiscal discomfort. A credible path to solvency does not begin with higher levies on success, but with a restraint on the appetite of the state itself. Think of reform where it matters: prune subsidies that siphon away resources, streamline public programs that have grown beyond their original purposes, and shift the burden toward a simpler, more predictable tax structure that spares individuals and firms from constant recalibration. If growth falters because incentives are distorted, the revenue shortfall persists not because the economy is insolvent, but because it is misdirected—funneled by politicians rather than discovered by markets.

The advocate of liberty within me sees a better balance as a matter of subsidiarity and reform, not confrontation over tax rates. Let the mid-term tax relief for ordinary earners stand on its own merits in a framework that favors growth: a lower, simpler, more predictable tax environment, coupled with a determined reduction of non-essential spending and a clear reaffirmation that the state exists to uphold justice and the rule of law, not to micro-manage or redistribute every consequence of human action. If higher earners face some additional burden as a matter of necessity, let it be a carefully calibrated, transparent measure that aligns with growth prospects, not a political instrument to purchase acquiescence to entitlements that expand beyond the capacity of a stable economy.

And let us not forget the other voices in this chorus. The Greens may object that such plans are timid, the Left may demand different priorities in defense, and the unions may cry foul at cutbacks or at the pace of reform. Yet in every case the deeper question remains: what is the legitimate role of the state in a complex, diverse society where knowledge is dispersed and the future is uncertain? If the aim is freedom, it cannot be pursued by designating more revenue to feed a larger administrative machinery. It must be pursued by creating the conditions in which individuals and communities can thrive through voluntary exchange, prudent risk-taking, and the disciplined stewardship of resources.

In Germany, as in every society that aspires to liberty, the budget should be grounded in restraint, clarity, and respect for the limits of what central authority can reasonably claim to know. The path to lasting solvency lies not in novel tax presumptions, but in paring back what is not essential, letting growth do its work, and ensuring that the state serves as a transparent guardian of rights rather than an omnipresent boss of incomes. Only then will the trust between citizen and state be renewed, and only then will the economy, freed from the constant frictions of fiscal tinkering, render the prosperity that justifies the costs of a shared civilization.