At the center of the looming downfall is Guido Westerwelle, the leader of the pro-business Free Democratic Party and the country's foreign minister.

Westerwelle during the past week has been on a rampage against Germany's social welfare system, which he said encourages "late Roman decadence." He urged his coalition partners, the center-right Christian Democratic Union of Chancellor Angela Merkel, to better get behind his quite radical tax reform plans -- or face "consequences."

Westerwelle's comments sparked significant criticism at a time when millions of Germans are looking for a job in an economy that hasn't recovered from its worst crisis in decades.

Yet the foreign minister is not wavering. He brushed aside criticism that his comments defame a large part of the population as "socialism" and a deplorable "left-wing Zeitgeist."

"A person who works must have more than a person who doesn't work," Westerwelle said Wednesday to a cheering audience comprised of FDP members. "I only say what in truth all politicians know but no one dares to speak out loud."

Polls, however, indicate Westerwelle's boldness has damaged his party. A recent survey put the popularity rating of the FDP at 7 percent, less than half the 14.6 percent it won on Election Day in September 2009.

At that time, Westerwelle was the rising star in German politics, having led his FDP to the best election result ever and into a coalition government with Merkel's conservatives. Westerwelle had promised to push through bold reforms and change Germany's economy for the better.

Many of the FDP's reform plans have been sacked, however, because Merkel, the over-powerful chancellor, has stepped on the brakes.

At a time when Berlin has to balance a record budget deficit of around $130 billion, the FDP's tax and healthcare reforms would simply be too costly, observers say. Moreover, critics say the reforms would benefit a selected few instead of the country's majority.

It's the image of a party acting on behalf of its elite supporters -- it has handed a questionable tax break to hotel owners -- that has damaged the entire government, observers say.

"This coalition has started off badly," Nils Diederich, a senior expert on German politics, told United Press International in a telephone interview Thursday. "Westerwelle rode into the coalition on his high horse and he now has to realize that he needs to get down on the ground and continue on foot." The crisis between the FDP and the CDU has "paralyzed" the coalition, Diederich added.

The opposition, led by the center-left SPD, which had a share in government from 1998 until 2005, is too busy licking its own wounds to capitalize on the government's problems.

The far-left Left Party just lost its poster boy, the slightly radical yet hugely popular Oskar Lafontaine, and voters are so disillusioned with the SPD that even a new leader hasn't helped them to more support.

All eyes are now on the May regional elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state. A loss by the coalition government could remove its majority in the Bundesrat, the upper house of Parliament.

That could spell disaster for Berlin's reform plans -- if there are any left.

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