Hunger in America

I was watching a 60 Minutes story last night on homeless families in Seminole County, Florida. So many people have lost their homes in this area that buses pick up hundreds of kids each morning at cheap motels that families have had to move to.

Scott Pelley interviewed many children whose parents allowed them to speak to him. These children qualified for free lunch and Pelley talked to them about how they were affected by their parents struggles. The answers spoke about being hungry, embarrassed, cold, tired and feeling guilty. It is a terrible thing to watch.

One of the provincial answers is that we should not be giving so much money to foreign nations to help them with their food needs. Of course while being an easy target that is a red herring as foreign aid is a blip in the federal budget.

The first thought you think when you see families losing homes as their jobs went away, living in cars and one parent in order to keep from separating his family in different shelters stood with a sign asking for help. His story had a happy ending, a woman talked to him and said she might have a job. He now is a parking lot attendant for the University of South Florida. They are still living in the hotel but they are together.

I am not an expert. I believe in fair trade, tariffs on imports and other things that people tell me will not work. I also believe that we have had variations of trickle down economics since long before Reagan made the term famous. And it never works. Our taxation rates on the highest brackets are lower by far than they have been in the last half century.

Yet we must lower taxes on the richest to solve all our issues. We are beyond the point of getting the government we deserve. The divide between haves and have nots is greater than it has been in my lifetime. It is getting worse.

We better pass some more tax breaks quick. That will solve everything.