Rush Transcript – Correspondent Shanley Geddry

The Education Department says there are nearly a million homeless students in the United States. Considered one of the richest countries, the US has over thirty million children living in poverty.

Many factors contribute to this shameful statistic.

According to author David Cay Johnston average taxpayer income declined by 5.7% after Congress enacted tax cuts signed into law by George Bush in 2000. In 2008 wages were 8.1% lower than in 2007.

The US government loaned banks money with the expectation banks would loan to small businesses to help with job creation. Unfortunately for children, this didn’t work as expected and unemployment rates have soared.

Another factor contributing to lower wellbeing for children is education. Low wages and a lack of higher education contribute to families having insufficient incomes.

Tax revenue shortfalls have found schools and universities cutting back on educational services and hiking tuition costs. These actions cause a brain drain and perpetuate child poverty when low-income children don’t get the education they need to thrive as adults.

Despite evidence that tax cuts and bank bailouts do not appear to work as planned, Congress has extended tax cuts and tax bonuses to billionaires.

Big banks are making big profits after being bailed out with taxpayer money but this profit hasn’t resulted in new jobs for families living below the poverty level.

The same thinking that created these problems cannot be expected to solve them.

There are other ideas about how to fix some of these problems.

Economist Dean Baker says that instead of giving money to Wall Street banks, if the government had instead provided $3 trillion to state and local governments at 4 points below market rate they would have been able to relend the money at current rates and the profit would make up for the shortfall in tax revenue.

More tax revenue means better infrastructure, roads, public safety and more money for education. That is just one idea and with a good education many more ideas can be found.

Kids may have to take the initiative to educate policy makers because adults are not paying attention and kids are suffering all around the globe.