Every time Bush talks about our “robust and strong” economy, I just want to puke. He acts like if he says it enough then it must be true. Of course we all know Bush doesn’t read the papers to see articles like this:

If you want to measure the strength of the city, you might consider a statistic released this week: The number of families seeking food from the St. Vincent DePaul Food Pantry has increased 78 percent over the last year.

“Families are feeling a pinch right now from a lot of different directions. Minimum wage has not increased in years, and I think this is just one sign of how the economy is going for Cincinnati residents,” said Julie Rack, of St. Vincent DePaul.

The increased demand is putting a strain on the pantry’s supply.

“With summer coming up and children being out of school …. people are going to need more food,” Rack said.

Another reason to work even harder? The largest group that the food bank serves is those children who won’t be getting food from schools’ breakfast and lunch programs.

“People with children will do anything they can to feed their children, pride aside,” Rack said.

This is a story I didn’t have to go hunting for – it found me. This is a local news story for the Cincinnati Area. What is even more amazing is the fact that this article came out on the same day Bush was speaking less than 10 miles from the St. Vincent DePaul Food Pantry and had this to say:

We’ve got a good economy right now. And that’s good news. Unemployment rate is 4.7 percent nationwide. (Applause.) We’ve got — productivity is up; home ownership is up; after-tax — real after-tax income is up by over 8 percent since 2001. Things are rocking along.

The only thing “rocking along” is the number of people struggling harder to make ends meat Mr. Bush.

This is the typical neo-con attitude – if C.E.O.’s are making money and buying stuff and the upper 1% is making money and buying stuff then the economy is doing great. That is not a democracy but rather a theocracy The lives of middle America, the people that actually make this country go, are not the one’s Washington worries about. They worry about the millionaires out there and want to make sure they have the great lives while at the same time squashing the American dream for everyone else, and it is working. People now have a better chance of climbing the social-economic ladder in places like the U.K. than they do here.

Our economy sucks, our national security sucks, our health care sucks, our education system sucks and most importantly – our leadership SUCKS. These are the cold hard facts that Bush refuses to speak of.