Joe Biden, ice cream in hand as so often, yesterday pronounced on Liz Truss’s tax reform disaster.
‘I wasn’t the only one that thought it was a mistake,’ said Joe Biden, sounding every bit the wise old man of global politics. ‘I think that the idea of cutting taxes on the super-wealthy at a time when… I disagree with the policy, but that’s up to Great Britain.’
That concession at the end is the President realising he’s just breached the normal rules of diplomacy – by giving his opinion on an ally’s domestic difficulties. But he just can’t help himself.
Biden has probably forgotten, but he has proposed increasing the top rate of marginal tax in the US
Steerpike wonders, however, if Biden – no pauper himself after cashing in on his status after the Obama years – can recall what the highest rate of income tax in the United States is.
Because Liz Truss’s proposal, if it had been allowed, would still have left Britain a considerably less accommodating fiscal destination for the super wealthy than America currently is.
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