Wealth Inequality: Where is?

My 18 month old daughter loves to ask "Where is?" She really doesn't have a handle yet connecting her questions with nouns (book, crayon). I think that like her, many Christians today largely ignore or feel powerless in relation to the nouns "Wealth Equality." Any quick perusal of the news today will include stories about budget deficits, the need for tax cuts, pension reforms, ending collective bargaining for public unions and budget cuts to education, health and social services such as Planned Parenthood and Head Start. Yes, let's not ask the wealthy to pay more so that our children can be healthy and well-educated so that our nation can continue to prosper. Yes, let's not cut or means-test entitlements, even though they currently eat up 43% of the US budget (Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security in 2010). And yes, let's continue to spend 20% of the budget on "defense," a word that really should be called "offense."

But the real point of this blog post is to think about the underlying issues of wealth and income that lie underneath such budget battles. America is a fabulously wealthy country and the vast majority of us do not have to deal with issues like homelessness and hunger (even as both have been increasing over the past few years). America certainly has enough wealth to end such issues forever and it is an embarrassment that our public debate does not make ending such inequalities a priority (rather than tax cuts).

Instead, income inequality, though different than wealth inequality, seems to be the priority. For example:
--In 1976, the richest 1% of Americans took home 9% of total US income. In 2010, the richest 1%
   took home 24% of income.
--From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the  
   richest 1 percent.
These statistics are from: www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html

And how do the vast majority Christians respond? Are we protesting in the streets in places other than Madison? Are we using Jesus' words about about the impossibility of loving wealth and loving God (Matt 6:24-5) to argue that being Christian obligates us to focus on loving God through the love of neighbor rather than love of comfort, dollars and things? Are we using the account in the Acts of the Apostles in which the earliest Christians shared possessions amongst themselves and no one was in need (Acts 4:34) to suggest that being a Christian obligates us to care for the needy equally with caring for oneself? Are we willing to give up what we have for others?

Or do we read books like "Jesus, CEO" and "Leadership Lessons of Jesus: A Timeless Model for Today's Leaders" that equate material success with spiritual development, supporting Max Weber's claim in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that we relieve our anxiety about being right with God by "seeing" such rightness in worldly success? Do we support the wealthy in their search for more wealth because they are favored by God?

Where is the outrage? Where are the Christians? Where is?