The veteran broadcaster Tavis Smiley, and the author and Princeton University Professor Cornel West, are in the midst of a 15 city, cross-country trek they have dubbed, “The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience.” The tour comes on the heels of last week’s deficit agreement, which has been widely criticized for excluding a tax hike on the wealthy as well as any measures to tackle high unemployment. “Any legislation that doesn’t extend unemployment benefits, doesn’t close a single corporate loophole, doesn’t not raise one cent in terms of new revenue in terms of taxes on the rich or the lucky, allows corporate America to get away scot-free again, the banks and Wall Street getting away again, and all of these cuts ostensibly on the backs of everyday people,” says Smiley.