Mr. Wolf states tax cuts are "not feasible. Higher taxes are needed to pay off debt." Yes, German debt coming out of the recession is higher than anyone would like.  But there is always some-even considerable-debt:  that can't mean taxes always must rise, even especially if they throttle economic activity.  Like all policy choices, especially fiscal ones, the mix of debt, taxes, and spending are wholly subject to political control. If Germany lacks the will or interest in controlling spending, then it must have higher taxes.  But that is a choice the nation makes, not some sort of morally-superior repudiation of debt.  Again, we think the debt will be more manageable with tax cuts that reward effort and productivity, coupled with restraint on overall spending. With nearly half the nation's wealth-generation going to government, it is absurd to think nothing may be cut.  To suggest that Germany's taxes are so high because of spending on infrastructure or education is, frankly, absurd-which one look at the percentages of spending reveals.

We also did not in any way imply that tax cuts should necessarily be afforded with higher spending. If the German political parties, even the alleged liberal or fiscally conservative ones, don't want to stop the gravy train of redistributing and borrowing money to-in essence-pay for votes (hotel industry, low income earners, pharmacists, Opel employees-the list goes on), then they will have to be forced in some way. Tax cuts could be the right instrument to rein in spending. If debt and good intentions are going to get a passing grade for arguing the 'impossibility', even 'irresponsibility' of tax cuts, we're making it too easy for politicians. The thinking that underpins this is misguided.

Lastly, Mr. Wolf says "Both Germany's finance minister and the federal president, who used to run the IMF [emphasis added], ruled out further substantial tax cuts."  Any first semester student of logic can smell the argumentum ad verecundium-the appeal to authority-at three paragraphs against the wind. Perhaps a German reflex, but unfortunate, since it is a logical fallacy rather than a point well made. Never mind that one could spend hours debating whether the IMF credential is actually a positive or negative one. Or that, with an (equally fallacious) counter-argument, one could point to the present IMF Mission Chief to Germany having said this week that "there would be advantages to tax cuts that would be tailored to boosting growth, however, tax cuts-any tax cuts-would need to be done in a fiscally responsible manner." If someone who once ran the IMF says "no tax cuts", we must not have them? What Mr. Köhler has said on economic matters as of late, often contracting his rhetoric even during his first term as President, surely deserves much more scrutiny than that.

Mr. Laurson is editor-in-chief of the International Affairs Forum. Mr. Pieler is an attorney and former tax counsel to the Senate Finance Committee.