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Michael Hiltzik: How the right exploits ‘uncertainty’

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The ability of the conservative lobby in Washington to simultaneously hold contradictory views and consider this an intellectual achievement is surely one of the marvels of life in the 21st century.

Consider the ‘uncertainty’ trope, the subject of my Wednesday column.

To hear the U.S. Chamber of Commerce tell it, the future course of the economy is so uncertain that businesses have stopped hiring workers or making investments.

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To hear the U.S. Chamber of Commerce tell it, we can be so certain about what conditions will be 30 years from now that we should eviscerate Social Security today, just to be ready for the coming storm.

This isn’t a clouded crystal ball -- it’s a bass-ackwards crystal ball, a marvelous device that can forecast the distant future with perfect vision but can’t see around the next corner.

Of course, I’m joking. The chamber is being perfectly consistent. Both of its prescriptions, for cuts in Social Security and for less regulation and lower taxes today, really boil down to the same thing: Cosset the rich and let the middle class and the working class go hang. To obscure their goals, the chamber and its minions in Congress dress up this agenda with crocodile tears about protecting retirement income and creating jobs and not burdening our children and our children’s children.... Why does anyone listen to them?

The column begins below.

Over the last few economically stagnant months, a new explanation has emerged for why businesses are reluctant to hire more workers and otherwise gear up for recovery.

The reason, you see, is ‘uncertainty.’ The idea seems to be that Washington’s will-they-or-won’t-they dithering over extending the Bush tax cuts, the advent of healthcare reform, financial reform, etc., etc., etc., has unsettled the business landscape so horribly that decision makers are huddled under duvets, gnawing their knuckles in fear and bewilderment.

This argument raises a number of important questions. The first is: When did American business leaders turn into such wusses? This nation spent three decades facing the threat of nuclear annihilation from the Soviet Union. That was uncertainty, and it hovered over the most prosperous period in our history. Now CEOs are crabbing about not knowing if their top marginal federal income tax rate will stay at 35% or rise all the way to 39.6.

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Read the whole column.

-- Michael Hiltzik

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