This spring, Newark mayor Cory Booker, then considering a run for U.S. Senate, came to my office along with members of his staff to discuss national economic issues. We spent a couple of hours batting around such familiar topics as deficit spending, public investment, and Wall Street’s role in creating or suppressing job growth. But I also used the opportunity to move beyond these subjects to what I think is the most critical problem in America today: child poverty.

It’s a problem largely absent from our political debate. When candidate Romney, with embarrassing honesty, admitted that he wasn’t “concerned…