Jay Livingston slams a GOP talking point lent legitimacy by Gary Becker:
[Becker] pushes uncertainty to the front of the line-up and says not a word about the usual economic suspects – sales, costs, customers, demand. It’s all about the psychology of those in small business, their perceptions and feelings of uncertainty, Not only are these vague and hard to measure, but as far as I know, we do not have any real data about them. Becker provides no references. The closest thing I could find was a small business survey from last year [above], and it showed that people in small business were far more worried about too little demand than about too much regulation.
Greg Ip and Ezra Klein have more thoughts on the issue.
