BETTER SCHROEDER:

Angela Merkel decides against tax cuts (UPI, 10/18/05)

Germany's chancellor-designate Tuesday dropped her campaign pledge to cut taxes, much to the chagrin of the business community. [...]

The response was swift.

"(It is) alarming that, from the very beginning of the coalition negotiations there was agreement on what cannot -- rather than on what can -- be done. This is a very defensive approach," said Eckart Tuchtfeld, an economist with Commerzbank in Frankfurt.