In the early 1990s George Bush senior exposed to voters that he wasn't quite like the rest of us when, during a photo op in a supermarket, he expressed his stunned amazement with optical scanners.

George junior is reminding us again of the disconnection of the wealthiest Americans from the rest of us.

George thinks if we all drive a little less, postpone our vacation to the Hamptons maybe,

we won't notice that the price of a tank of gas is hurting us all, and most of all, is hurting the working poor.

You see, George never made minimum wage, or anything near it, and George's friends and advisors (some think of them more as cronies) have never felt true poverty. But 16 million Americans work full time for minimum wage, and another 31 million make under $8 per hour.

The math here is not so pretty. Picture a scenario like this one: I get off of welfare to take a job that doesn't have benefits. Now I lose medical coverage for myself and my children for a job that pays a net pay of approximately $250 per week. Groceries are $90 for three if we shop very carefully. Rent is $100 a week. Without school clothes or any medical costs (and never prescription medicines) that leaves $60.

Now comes the gas price increase, and suddenly filling up an older, less fuel efficient car, costs $50-$70 dollars per week. I went from barely making it to not making it at all.

And since we don't take the vacations we should cut back on because minimum wage jobs don't have paid vacations, we can't cut back our gas consumption unless I stop going to work.

If the car needs repairs, then what? If anyone gets sick how can we handle that? After all, it's just a few dollars extra each week Š just $30 or $40.

So while the president suggests we just conserve and we'll be peachy, we know how hard this extra expense hurts us. Mr. President, want to know why your poll numbers are so dismal?

Try this, we are hurting. Millions of Americans and having a harder and harder time making ends meet in your new economy. Yes, the rich are getting richer, that fact is irrefutable. And, statistics say that for the forth year in a row, the poor are getting poorer.

So the economy is working just the way you intended. And it isn't just your no-policy oil policy. It is the out-of-reach cost of health insurance that leaves 46 million of us with no health protection.

It is your policy of don't ask, don't tell with pharmaceutical pricing that leaves us unable to buy the prescriptions we need. It is your support for a NAFTA treaty that is taking away American jobs and transferring them to low-wage workers in other countries.

It is your cuts in federal support of Medicaid that ends up as cuts at the state level that hurt the weakest Americans. It is your determination to take away the security of 170,000 federal employees in Homeland Security.

It is your success in converting the Department of Labor into the Department of Management while passing new policies that deny many Americans overtime they have earned. All that and much more.

But hey, all is not lost..you are giving us another tax cut this fall right? The policy of eliminating the estate tax will help us all won't it?

It will give us the relief we need in these tough times, right? What's that? It only affects estates of over $3 million? You are kidding right? We are hurting and this is your response?

Dr. Jim Crawford is an administrator at Ohio University Southern. He can be reached at drjim893@msn.com.