Is "Soziale Marktwirtschaft" the Answer?

For the current crop of Republicans who have decided 80 years of economic security for seniors, children, veterans, college students, the disabled, unemployed, middleclass and working poor is no longer affordable, I give you Germany.

Germany is an economic powerhouse. It has the largest economy in the Eurozone; the fourth largest in the world with a 2010 GDP growth of 3.5 percent compared to our 2.8. It's second to China in global exports at $1.1 trillion, one-third of its national product. Get this. German executives earn only 12 times the pay of factory workers compared to U.S. bosses at 344:1.

It has done all this without abandoning its social ideals going back to 1883 when it established the world's first universal, government-mandated and subsidized health care insurance. Today, according to The Commonwealth Fund survey of six industrialized nations, it ranks second overall in quality of care. The U.S. is tied for last. What's more, Germany spends less on annual per capita health care '" $3588 to our $7290 '" and less as a percentage of GDP '" 10.4 to our 16.

Germany's comprehensive and generous social safety net includes cradle-to-grave medical access, K through grad school tuition, paid sick and maternity leave, dental care and jobless benefits, including health coverage, which never run out. It ranks 11 out of 136 nations in economic equality compared to the U.S. at 98.

For those who insist higher taxes are the death knell to economic growth, compare: average German consolidated corporate tax, 33 percent; average U.S. federal/state/local corporate tax on the S&P 500, 32 percent. Average corporate contribution for pension/health care, 41 to 17 percent; Top marginal individual rate, 45 to 35 percent; Average VAT or state/local taxes, 19 to 10 percent.

Remember, Germany's economy was devastated following the War and received another blow upon reunification with the insolvent German Democratic Republic in 1990. Its success is a lesson for America.

Rather than heed Chamber of Commerce demands to fling open the doors to third world competition, essentially sanctioning American companies to spike profits both ways, using cheap offshore labor and then selling us cut-rate knockoffs of what we used to build, Germans poured money into education, infrastructure, research and innovation to develop and export high-end products that can't easily be duplicated in Asian sweatshops.

Their industrial policies have been rewarded with balance of trade surpluses for decades, currently $162 billion. Instead our "consumption-free trade" approach, forcing American workers to compete with third world workers to line the pockets of American executives, has left us snowballing trade deficits since 1975, currently (-)$561 billion, and a shriveling middleclass.

Germans, including the center-right ruling Christian Democrats, have chosen a social market economy -- "Soziale Marktwirtschaft" -- that rejects the detrimental consequences of unbridled profiteering and tea party-style scorched earth. It's working.