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From The Economist (November 24^th-30^th, 2012, “Naming names,” p.16), on putting the more than $6 billion spent on the 2012 election into perspective:

 …when you consider that Americans were electing on November 6^th not just the president but 435 congressmen and 33 senators in a vast country of 330m people, where electioneering is primarily conducted by paid television advertisements, the figure may not seem quite so high. Americans spend more than that every year in potato crisps.

There is a myth that higher taxes on our “Job Creators” will ruin our economy. Like many myths, this one should not be accepted on faith.

A lot of people seem to take dogmatic pronouncements like this on faith. According to a May 2012 Gallup Poll, for instance, 46 percent of American adults believe that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.”

And according to the 2012 Presidential Election, it looks as though about 47 percent of American adults—at least those who voted—believe that higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans would lead to higher unemployment.

Both of these beliefs seem to persist despite ample evidence to the contrary. Mountains of irrefutable evidence from the fields of geology, archaeology, paleontology, biology and astronomy support the “theory” that life-forms, including humans, evolved on planet Earth over a period of many millions of years. A simple reading of recent history and also a recently suppressed-and-then-unsuppressed report from the Congressional Research Service show that higher marginal tax rates on high income levels do not, in fact, hamper the economy or hinder job growth.

In the 1950’s, the Eisenhower administration reduced the highest marginal tax rate from 92 percent to a much more reasonable 91 percent. Despite—or perhaps in part because of—these tax rates, the economy grew exponentially, real wages flourished, and the “Father Knows Best” generation enjoyed a period of prosperity so wonderful that one of our political parties seems determined to turn our national clocks back by 60 years (tax rates excluded, of course).

Let us consider the likely impact of a marginal tax rate of 91 percent on income over—oh let’s pick a number—say, $250,000 per year. With such a tax rate, small business owners and corporate magnates would have little incentive to siphon more than that amount out of their businesses for their own personal use. Given the choice of sending 91 cents out of every dollar over $250,000 to the government or plowing 100 cents from each of those dollars back into the business, what do you suppose America’s one-percenters would do?

Well, if they were to follow the example of the hallowed 1950s, they would do things like buying and producing more inventory. Investing in more research. Buying more equipment. Hiring more employees and training them to be more productive. And the next thing you know, we would have more valuable businesses, higher employment, more money to pay in salaries, and a more vibrant economy. And a shrinking Federal deficit.

But with no difference in the tax rates on the first $250,000 and every dollar in income over that amount, the biggest incentive that remains is simple greed. That is our current economic condition, with the wealthiest Americans focused on wealth acquisition and wealth preservation. 

Remember, whether they are business owners or "merely" business executives, these are people who can choose how to allocate the proceeds of their businesses. Because there is no incentive to do otherwise, too many of these "Job Creators" are allocating too much of their businesses' proceeds to themselves. 

Instead of being reinvested to build businesses, grow the economy and create more jobs, the profits of our successful businesses are being siphoned off to accumulate and be preserved in hedge funds and off-shore accounts, from whence they are unlikely to trickle down to anyone but the next generation of the one percent (unless we do something about the recently gutted Inheritance Tax). And their motto: “Never, ever, dip into Capital!”

Right now, our representatives in Washington are considering whether to raise the tax rates on the highest incomes from 35 percent up to as much as 39 percent. Those opposed to this slight increase claim it will discourage job creation. 

Relatively speaking, they are right. Raising the tax rate on income over $250,000 to 39 percent will not encourage job creation nearly as much as reversing the order of those digits. Let’s make it 93 percent instead.

You never know when an opposing candidate or partisan will make a statement requiring a response—or providing an opportunity for one. It is best to be prepared at all times. 

If you sympathize with or support this year's Democratic slate of candidates, here are ten talking points you may wish you had memorized come November 7th.

1.       Your party wants to privatize social security, turn Medicare into a voucher program, and give insurance companies the right to refuse coverage to people with preexisting conditions.

2.       Your party wants to make contraception illegal, and to force women to carry and give birth to the products of rape and incest, even if it endangers their lives.

3.       Your party wants to strip working people of the right to join together to protect each other’s rights, negotiate for better working conditions, and receive equal pay for equal work.

4.       Your party wants to cut investment in our country’s roads, bridges, public safety agencies and education system to pay for massive tax cuts for millionaires and even bigger ones for billionaires.

5.       Your party wants to double down on the same policies that led to the greatest financial crisis and deepest economic recession since the great depression.

6.       Your party wants to convince people that the way to create jobs is to fire teachers, firemen and policemen.

7.       Your party wants to restore America’s standing in the world community by reinstating the Cheney-Bush policies on torture, hiring back all the Cheney-Bush foreign policy advisors, and starting up the Big Lie about going to war because of weapons of mass destruction all over again.

8.       Your party wants to win the election by making it harder for people to vote.

9.       Your party refuses to let your campaign claims and policy proposals be dictated to by fact-checkers, simple mathematics, or the truth.

10.   So far, your party’s policies and candidates have managed to alienate African Americans, Latinos, women, the gay community, the AARP, military veterans, school teachers, doctors, nurses, nuns and our strongest ally, Great Britain. Who’s next?