Jacob Rees-Mogg backs Trump’s tax cuts but warns him against protectionism

Yesterday, in the first two of five video clips from UnHerd’s interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg we focused on the state of British politics and also a little bit of religion. Today the topics are capitalism and the people and communities who appear to be at the sharp end of change.

Yesterday he was backing workers rights and today we learn that – like most of us – the Conservative MP for North East Somerset is not prepared to defend the telephone number salaries of so many CEOs of big businesses. JRM notes that the vast majority of business chiefs aren’t even risking their own capital and whenever things do go wrong in their companies – as Harriet Maltby has fumed – there’s often no or little downside for executive managers. It’s extraordinary, Rees-Mogg tells our interviewer Charlotte Pickles, that shareholders don’t already have the powers they should automatically possess to ensure sense is restored to boardroom pay.

JRM backed Trump’s controversial tax cuts package which many (including UnHerd’s Liam Halligan) have warned will largely benefit the rich and worsen the USA’s already large federal deficit. Mr Rees-Mogg’s response to those criticisms? ‘You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer’ and that tax cuts can pay for themselves because – as the economist Arthur Laffer famously argued – they unleash greater risk-taking and make work more attractive. It is true that most reductions in the tax burden do increase positive economic incentives. The evidence, however, is that most tax cuts fall well short of financing themselves.