John Bruton brought down a government - via the vote of the late Jim Kemmy - when he tried to tax children's shoes. It's a lesson that should be seared into the consciousness of politicians - don't tax children - but is one that Germany's Chancellor Gerhardt Schröder's mentors clearly never taught him.
One of the strands of a package of major welfare reforms being pushed through by his Red Green coalition involves the means-testing of benefits paid to children of unemployed workers. Children will lose payments worth €207 a month if they have more than €750 in savings. The press has had a field day with headlines about "taxing piggy banks".
Once again the coalition is in crisis with tens of thousands out on the streets protesting, particularly in the east. Yesterday the chancellor dragged cabinet members back from their holidays in a bid, government sources suggest, to agree a package of concessions to sweeten an otherwise very bitter pill, but one that is central to the chancellor's Agenda 2010 reform programme.
Until now German workers who were made redundant were entitled to unemployment benefit worth 67 per cent of their last pay for a year, falling to 60 per cent after that. The first year was funded by the social security system, while, from then on, general tax coffers provided the means. Now it is proposed, from the end of the first year, to replace pay-related benefits with a means-tested flat-rate of €331 for workers in the east, and €341 for those in the west. The purpose is to bring Germany into line with other welfare regimes where hugely expensive, unlimited wage-linked benefit is unheard of. Economists complain that companies persuade large numbers of older workers to "retire" early on unemployment benefit at the state's considerable expense.
Despite compensating provisions involving improved access to health and pension insurance for the unemployed, anger has focused on the child provisions and easterners' fears that provisions permitting the denial of benefit to jobseekers who refuse work will result in them being forced to move home in search of a job.
With Schröder's SPD languishing at 25 per cent in the polls, the main conservative opposition at between 45 and 50 per cent, and the possible emergence of a new party to the SPD's left, all the chancellor's renowned political skills will be called on to deliver economic reform. The dogged persistence of mass unemployment - at 10.5 per cent of the labour force in July - makes it an uphill battle. But it is one his EU partners will want him to win. The sluggish German economy holds all of Europe back. Unleashed, we will all benefit.