> So have all those things people have said about the Greens representing a
> petit bourgeois/upper middle class milieu turned out to be true?
Not in the slightest. Occasionally Green spokespeople like to provoke the press is all. The Red-Green tax reforms are pretty progressive; tax rates on low-income earners are dropping from 25.9% to 22.9%, while family funds ("Kindergeld", literally, child-money) is going up to around 260 DM a month (140 euros). The rate on top earners is going down from 53% to 51%, and on corporate taxes from 45% to 40%. Lest you get the idea the latter is a giveaway, what's happening is that they're clearing out lots of the bogus subsidies, porkbarrel kickbacks, etc. which ensured that half the millionaires in Hamburg paid no taxes in 1997 (an SPD study confirmed this). Also, they're taxing financial gains more heavily, in a variety of little-publicized ways -- which is why Allianz, Deutsche Bank and the rest of the Eurofinanciers are frothing at the mouth.
All in all, the average household with two kids will get something like 1600 euros extra, per year, from the tax changes alone, will the rich will pay a great deal more than they ever have. Der Oskar lost the battle but is winning the war.
-- Dennis