As President Bush's time in office comes to a none-too-soon end, it is a good time to take stock of what has happened to our economy on his watch and to plan for where we go in the future.

Under Bush, 6 million Americans have slipped into poverty, the median income for working families declined by more than $2,000, some 7 million people lost their health insurance and 4 million workers lost their pensions. The backbone of the American economy for the past 50 years, a strong and prosperous middle class, has been severely weakened. Meanwhile, the gap between the very wealthy and everyone else has dramatically increased with the highest income Americans making out like bandits - which many of them are.

In Washington, the economic crisis that imperils us all has received much less attention than the financial crisis that mainly affected Wall Street, but it is no less real or threatening. Unemployment last month hit a five-year high of 6.1 percent. Home prices - the main source of most Americans' wealth - fell 16 percent in 20 U.S. cities in July compared to one year earlier. The bottom is nowhere in sight. Foreclosures are at the highest rate in almost three decades. Health care, food and educational costs are rising, and more and more Americans are lining up at emergency shelters and food shelves.

So this is my question: If Congress can fork over $700 billion to rescue the Wall Street fat cats from their reckless gambles, why can't we put millions of Americans to work rebuilding our country as we address the severe economic crisis we currently face?

When the House and Senate reconvene in November, our top priority should be to commit to a major investment in repairing our crumbling infrastructure and our patchwork electric grid. We should lay a solid foundation for new energy sources in order to end our dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil. We must address the social crises we face in terms of unemployment, education, health care, nutrition, and poverty.

In short, we must begin to rebuild America. Here's some of what we should be doing:

We should make a major financial commitment to improving our roads and bridges. We also must bring back our railroads for both energy-efficient freight trains and high-speed passenger service. We need to bring our water and sewer systems into the 21st century. These bricks-and-mortar projects are not only badly needed but also generate jobs. Each billion dollar investment creates up to 47,000 new jobs.

We should make a major financial commitment to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. In one fell swoop, we could stop importing foreign oil in 10 years, produce all of our electricity from sustainable energy within a decade, and substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions. We can make the United States the world leader in the construction of solar, wind, bio-fuel and geothermal facilities for energy production, as well as creating a significant number of jobs by making our homes, offices, schools and factories far more energy efficient.

We should make a major financial commitment to education. With the highest level of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, millions of our youngsters are in sub-standard child care programs and get off to a poor start in life. At the same time, many of our high school graduates cannot afford college. We must invest in new classrooms, new computers, energy-efficient heating and cooling systems. That would not only create jobs, but relieve some of the burden on the regressive property tax.

In these harsh economic times, we should extend unemployment benefits for at least seven additional weeks so benefits don't dry up for more than 1 million Americans by the end of this year. We should increase eligibility for food stamps and other nutrition programs to assist the hard-pressed middle class as well as the poor. We should substantially increase funding for the highly-effective community health center program so that, at a minimum, all Americans have access to affordable primary health care, dental care, and low-cost prescription drugs.

Finally, with cities and states facing deep deficits and cutting basic services, we must make a major, immediate financial commitment to states and municipalities. Their crisis will only grow worse as homes are foreclosed, as income and capital gains decline, as fees on sales of homes and motor vehicles diminish. For too long, unfunded federal mandates have drained the budgets of states and communities. The strength and vitality of America's communities must be restored.

This is a pivotal moment in our history. The American people are demanding fundamental changes in our nation's economic policies. They are right. After suffering though eight years of the Bush disaster, they deserve no less.