As ThinkProgress has reported, American income inequality has skyrocketed over the last three decades. The wealthiest Americans have captured a large share of the nation’s economic prosperity, and their incomes continue to rise even as middle class wages remain stagnant. This income inequality has serious repercussions for the middle class, jeopardizing their economic ability and their political power.

But it doesn’t just affect people who are currently in the workforce. It has also contributed to a growing education gap that is affecting low- and middle-income children, according to a Center for American Progress report on income inequality and the middle class. The lowest-achieving students from high-income backgrounds are more likely to obtain a college education than the highest achieving students from low-income backgrounds, the report showed:

Perhaps most stunningly, there is evidence that low-income children who demonstrate aptitude for postsecondary education do not have the same access as children from higher-income backgrounds. The U.S. Department of Education reports that the probability that a top-scoring low-income student completes college is about the same as the probability that a low-scoring high-income student does, while the probability that a top-scoring middle-income student completes college is about as likely as a middle-scoring high-income student.

As income inequality continues to increase, the gap in educational attainment is growing too. The achievement gap between high- and low-income students is 30 to 40 percent larger than it was a generation ago, according to the paper, and income inequality is the primary reason. Areas of the country in which the middle class makes a higher share of income, meanwhile, demonstrate higher scores on achievement tests.

These problems lead to cycles of inequality that persist through generations. As Alan Krueger, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, notes, the future economic mobility of American children is more closely tied to their parents’ income than it is in any other developed country. That means that rising income inequality, and the growing education gap it leads to, is jeopardizing the future for millions of American children before they even have a chance to change it.

House Republicans, in the wake of JP Morgan’s now $3 billion trading mess, have temporarily backed off their zeal to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. However, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) — who believes Washington’s role is to “serve the banks” — has JP Morgan’s back, excusing its actions and attacking Congressional Democrats for wanting to tighten regulations governing risky bank trading:

“Even with this loss, I believe they’re one of the most profitable financial institutions in the country, and unless the facts are diametrically different from what we’ve heard, there is no risk from this loss to depositors or to taxpayers,” Bachus said during a House hearing. “They remain a very profitable, viable institution.”

Bachus, an Alabama Republican, noted that JPMorgan Chase’s net worth is $189 billion, and its pre-tax profits last year were $25 billion.

“So a $2 billion loss would represent one month of earnings,” he said.

Bachus accused some fellow members of Congress — clearly a reference to Democrats — of advocating for laws that would essentially prevent businesses from losing money or taking risks.

“And no law can do that, nor should a law attempt to prohibit a company from taking risks,” he said.

But Bachus, like other Republicans, completely misses the point. The goal of financial regulations like the Volcker Rule — which the White House is attempting to strengthen following JP Morgan’s debacle — is not to prevent companies from taking on risk, but to prevent them from doing it while backed by taxpayers. JP Morgan carries deposits backed by the federal government, has access to the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending window, and is big enough to pull down the whole economy should it fail. It is, for all intents and purposes, entirely backed by taxpayers.

Therefore, it is entirely appropriate to say that JP Morgan either shed its federal backing — which would require it to shrink — or not take on risks that cost it billions of dollars. But many in the GOP have ignored the lesson.

2012 presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is making a fundraising swing through Florida. Today, one of Romney’s events — a $50,000 a plate dinner — will be hosted by private equity guru Marc Leder.

Leder, co-CEO of the private equity firm Sun Capital, was inspired to get into the private equity business during a visit to Romney’s former private equity firm, Bain Capital. And Sun Capital has a reputation for bankrupting companies in the pursuit of profit. In fact, “since 2008, some 25 of its companies — roughly one of every five it owns — have filed for bankruptcy.”

Not only that, but the company was accused by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) just a few months ago of intentionally pushing a company into bankruptcy in order to avoid paying workers’ pensions:

Sun Capital Partners, a Florida private equity firm, illegally transferred assets from the ice cream chain and its parent company responsible for the pension plans to another Sun affiliate shortly before the October bankruptcy filing, according to allegations in court records filed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. [...]

If Sun Capital and its affiliates are successful, it will allow them to shed more than $100 million in pension liabilities, yet retain control of the ice cream business, according to the agency.

Romney, of course, oversaw Bain, which also had a penchant for ditching pension benefits when it meant bigger returns for investors. The PBGC, in fact, bailed out one steel plant after Bain left its pension plan underfunded by $44 million.

TED, the nonprofit organization that organizes and promotes wonky web videos on varying issues known as “TED talks,” has reportedly decided not to publish a video on income inequality in which venture capitalist Nick Hanauer* declares, “Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs.” TED organizers deemed the talk too “politically controversial,” and in an email obtained by the National Journal, TED curator Chris Anderson told Hanauer that “we couldn’t release it, because it would be unquestionably regarded as out and out political. We’re in the middle of an election year in the US. Your argument comes down firmly on the side of one party.”

Just because TED regards the topic as too political, however, doesn’t mean Hanauer’s points aren’t valid. Income inequality has skyrocketed over the last three decades, as the richest Americans have seen their incomes rise and their tax rates fall. Middle class wages, meanwhile, haven’t kept up with costs or productivity. That led Hanauer to conclude that the middle class is the real engine of job growth, and that “we’ve had it backward for the last 30 years” by cutting taxes on the rich, according to his prepared remarks:

If it were true that lower tax rates and more wealth for the wealthy would lead to more job creation, then today we would be drowning in jobs. And yet unemployment and under-employment is at record highs. [...]

We’ve had it backward for the last 30 years. Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs. Rather they are a consequence of an eco-systemic feedback loop animated by middle-class consumers, and when they thrive, businesses grow and hire, and owners profit. That’s why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.

While conservatives say tax cuts for the rich will encourage job growth, facts tell the opposite story. The years following the Bush tax cuts were the worst for job creation since the government began keeping records, and those policies “fostered the weakest jobs and income growth in more than six decades” and “sluggish business investment and weak gross domestic product growth.”

Job growth over the post-war period, meanwhile, has been stronger when the top income tax rate was higher. “If you ranked each year since 1950 by overall job growth, the top five years would all boast marginal tax rates at 70 percent or higher,” Michael Linden, the director of tax and budget policy at the Center for American Progress, wrote last year.

Hanauer’s speech may be “too hot for TED,” but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

*Hanauer has been working on tax and inequality issues with the Center for American Progress.

JP Morgan’s $2 billion trading debacle has grown into a $3 billion trading debacle, as the White House is going on offense to push regulators to craft a stronger version of the Volcker Rule, which is meant to rein in banks’ risky trading. Even House Republicans have backed off their deregulatory zeal for the moment, in the wake of JP Morgan’s mess.

Presumptive 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, however, said that the loss is simply “the way America works,” and said that it doesn’t make the case for enhancing any regulations:

In his first direct comments on the bank’s missteps, Romney said, “I would not rush to pass new legislation or new regulation.” [...]

“This was not a loss to the taxpayers of America; this was a loss to shareholders and owners of JPMorgan and that’s the way America works,” he said. “The $2 billion JPMorgan lost, someone else gained.” [...]

While Romney supported the federal bailout of the banking system, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, he said in yesterday’s interview that the economic climate has changed and banks now should be allowed to fail.

“My own view is that if a large bank gets in difficulty, why, it can fail,” he said. “There’s no reason why the shareholders or bondholders of a bank can’t lose their funds if a bank were to get in trouble.”

Romney, in his hurry to decry regulations, misses the key point: risky bank trading is not the embodiment of capitalism if the government needs to step in and rescue a giant firm that fails. While JP Morgan survived this particular trade, there’s no telling what would happen to a bank in worse financial shape that took a similar risk. And the episode highlights that the biggest banks — which, contrary to Romney, can’t simply fail, as they could haul down the whole economy down with them — are still ready and willing to take absurd risks with taxpayer backed dollars. And Romney is happy to see them do so.

Of course, this is just part and parcel of Romney’s fealty to Wall Street interests. He has shown no interest in correcting the gaps in oversight that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis, instead promising to repeal Dodd-Frank, while laying out no alternative.