The Bush administration has recently been celebrating the supposed stellar performance of the US economy. For many middle class Americans, nothing could be further from the truth.

With their Iraq policy and almost everything else they have touched an abysmal failure, and the American people getting more disenchanted every day, Rove et al have been working hard to change the headlines by projecting an image of economic growth and prosperity. 

For most of America’s middle class though, the reality is quite different than what the White House and it's Fox News messengers would have you believe. In fact, according to a poll sponsored by the Center For American Progress,

"the public is more worried about falling into debt, particularly from medical bills, than about being the victim of a terrorist attack or natural disaster and 86 percent insist the number of Americans having trouble with household debt has gone up in the last five years."

Incomes aren't rising nearly as fast as the costs of the big three, healthcare, housing and education. The only Americans that are truly happy about this increasingly troublesome economic climate are wealthy conservatives and their GOP enablers who embrace the compassionless rhetoric of an Ayn Rand guided ownership society and the Bush tax handout crafted just for them. Things are getting worse for the millions of poor people in this country and the middle class are also feeling the pain as the wealth gap continues to grow, inexorably squeezing them as it does.

Following is just a taste of the reality that conservatives don’t think or care about.

1. Most working people and middle class families are genuinely struggling to survive, many from paycheck to paycheck. Millions are one unforeseen incident away from bankruptcy and worse.

2. Housing costs have been skyrocketing and millions of homes are losing value as interest rates increase, sales slow and inventories rise. Also, defaults on adjustable rate mortgages and foreclosures have climbed to record highs.

3. Medical bills including prescription drug prices are through the roof with many elderly citizens on fixed incomes forced into making impossible decisions every month on whether to pay the electric bill or purchase the medications they so desperately need.

4. Gas prices continue to rise with more and more working people being pushed further down the economic ladder. With millions forced to live hours from urban employment centers due to the lack of affordable housing, high gas prices are taking a terrible toll.

5. According to the The Minneapolis Star Tribune in the past year, food prices have increased 3.7 percent and are on track to jump by as much as 7 percent by year's end. The current increase is more than double the 1.8 percent jump seen the year before, according to the consumer price index.

6. Credit card debt is rising at an alarming rate and more American middle class families are using their credit cards as their financial safety net.

"American families are facing financial hardship not experienced for generations”, says Tamara Draut, Director of the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos. "The results are clear, wages have stagnated while medical and housing costs have skyrocketed, and if confronted with a layoff or health emergency there are few, if any, personal or public safety nets adequate enough to help in a crisis. Households are turning to high-cost credit cards to keep afloat."

7. Many Americans are working one, two, or even three jobs just to survive. Perhaps you remember Bush’s famous conversation with a divorced single mother named Mary Mornin of Omaha in 2005. She told the president,

"I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters. I have to work three jobs to make ends meet."

Astoundingly the clueless Bush replied,

“You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that!"

This disconnect is so huge it defies credulity. Yet it accurately defines conservatives lack of compassion for the working poor in America.

8. Hundreds and thousands have lost good paying manufacturing jobs to lower paid workers overseas as corporations once again chose higher corporate profits over the American workers who built their companies. Princeton University economist Alan Blinder, a former U.S. Federal Reserve Board vice-chair says the following.

“We have so far barely seen the tip of the offshoring iceberg, the eventual dimensions of which may be staggering.”

9. While America’s middle class struggles to make ends meet, corporate CEO’s and other high ranking corporate executives are receiving unconscionable compensation packages. According to the AFLCIO the CEO of a Standard & Poor's 500 company made on average $14.78 million in total compensation in 2006.

The political divide seems clearer than ever when it comes to the economy.