From Welfare to Work in the German city of Kassel

In this article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, we the see the kind of shift that took place in America in the 1990's. A reform America took in reasonably good economic times was taken because America largely rejected the nanny state. In Germany it is more the result of what could be called socialist exhaustion. When social benefits rise eventually its acts as a drag on the economy. This eventually forces a cut in social benefits because the weighted down economy can't afford them anymore. The Reagan and Thacher revolutions were a responce to the bad economies of the 70's. The Germans largely avoided the weak economy of the 70s, as did the Japanese and both are forced into confronting reform now, two decades later. Unfortunatly its all the harder when the disfunction has become so entrenched.

"The legislation governing welfare is a federal matter in Germany, and while Hesse Premier Roland Koch has argued for a U.S.-style system that would force welfare recipients to return to the workforce within a fixed period or face a loss of benefits, officials in Germany do not yet have this leeway."