German Pork
8
Marcus Schaper
list slot even the results in his home district do not matter. While description is only accurate for
members of parliament, the dominance of the Parteienlogik defines the political culture under
which delegates to Bundesrat as members of governments legitimized by state legislatures
operate. After all, they depend on the success of their parties in state elections to guard their
positions (Kreuzer 2000). In the U.S. system, the role of political parties is very limited. They are
crucial in the nominations process, but once a candidate has gained an office the importance of
party affiliation quickly fades. As discussed above, U.S. politicians acting as political
entrepreneurs are mostly self-sufficient.
Lijphart (1984; 1999) employs the consensus orientation of political systems as a central criterion
in his comparative analyses of democratic systems and their efficiency. While both Germany and
the United States rank similarly with respect to consensus-orientation in his federal-unitary
dimension, a good indicator for the performance of the regionally legitimized second chambers,
they differ by more than one standard deviation for consensus orientation in the executive-parties
dimension. Lijphart comments: „[…] Germany could have served as the [consensual] prototype”
(Lijphart 1999:248-50).
Lijpharts compares systems as a whole. If one analyzes the U.S. Senate and Bundesrat within
their respective systems it is easy to see that both chambers take more extreme positions within
their systems. The Bundesrat clearly operates more consensus-oriented than Bundestag and U.S.
Senators who are vested with extensive veto powers tend to display less compromise-orientation
than their colleagues in the House of Representatives.
Tax Reform
Reforming the German tax system had been high up on the political agenda for a long time.
Reform attempts by the conservative Kohl government failed due to the resistance of a majority
of SPD-ruled states in the Bundesrat. Though the general thrust of the reform packages presented
by Chancellors Kohl and Schroeder was similar, their concepts differed in details that made
compromise in this highly politicized controversy almost impossible. Common denominator of
both reform attempts was the goal of making Germany a more attractive business location. To
this end, reduction of income taxes and slashes in corporate taxation were considered to be
essential.
Rather surprisingly the tax reform bill passed on July 14, 2000, in the 753
rd
Bundesrat session in
Convention