With this week’s White House Jobs’ Summit, the government’s priority moves to where it should be: Putting people back to work. We face tremendous challenges with so many people losing their jobs, losing their homes, and going hungry.

• According to Associated Press, South Carolina’s unemployment is a record 12.1%.
• The number of South Carolinians losing their homes is increasing. “One out of every 268 homes in the Palmetto State was listed as being in distress,” according to the Columbia Regional Business Report.
• The most startling new finding is the number of Americans who are actually going hungry. A recent front-page story in the Philadelphia Inquirer reports US Department of Agriculture numbers that “America is hungry and getting hungrier, with 49 million people – 17 million of them children – last year unable to consistently get enough food to eat.”

  With one in six of households experiencing hunger, the South has the highest numbers in the country. “Experts attributed the harsh statistics to the recent recession and to an American poverty that has persisted despite economic growth earlier in the decade.”

These tragedies — lost jobs, lost homes and increasing hunger — are attributable to a lack of leadership by both parties in Washington. This disaster culminated with the crash of Wall Street and the continuing impact of that disaster on our every day lives.

The sad result is that after a drastic measure to save Wall Street at taxpayers’ expense, Wall Street has not learned a thing. Just recently, we learned that Wall Street executives would receive excessive bonuses. Bloomberg reports, “The firms — the three biggest banks to exit the Troubled Asset Relief Program — will hand out $29.7 billion in bonuses.”

The entire income of the 3rd Congressional District is less than $20 billion. That number is based on per capita income of $28,285 with approximately 700,000 citizens.

$29.7 billion for Wall Street bonuses.

$20 billion for the entire income of our District.

Think about that.

Apparently, Wall Street speculators have no intention of limiting their incomes while Americans are in distress.

Washington, both Democrats and Republicans, must address this outrageous greed and provide the necessary resources to put Americans back to work.

We must ensure that we never get in this situation again. At the same time, we must jump start our small businesses. Interest from the repayment of Wall Street bailout funds needs to be streamlined to our small businesses.

The biggest prospect of bringing jobs to our district is a long- term plan to invest in clean tech jobs. We need leaders in Washington, not politicians, to make these initiatives happen.

We have a lot to be thankful for. We also have a lot to learn. Our country will not remain the world’s leader until we provide good jobs for all of our hard-working citizens. To make the next holiday season better for all of us, we must make putting people back to work our top priority.