Here's the thing about money, it's not magic. It doesn't poof away in a cloud of smoke. If there is a recession and you are losing money (no longer getting a paycheck, paying too much for every day goods, losing money in stocks, whatever), your money isn't magically disappearing. Although, admittedly, that is exactly what it feels like.

I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, and you might want to be sitting down for this, but when your money is no longer with you, it is with someone else. Oh yeah, they don't call it dirty money for nothing. It no longer likes your meager, substandard, peanut butter and jelly eating lifestyle. It is living it up with someone who can provide it with the standard of living it knows it deserves - champagne wishes and caviar dreams, rather than PBR hangovers and tuna fish sandwiches.

Deny it all you want, the GOP is trying to keep us in a recession. "Nonsense," you say, "why would anyone want to keep us in a recession?" I'm glad you asked. It's trickle up economics. When the middle and lower classes are relegated to a place where they find it increasingly difficult to hold on to their money because they  are unemployed, or because Unions are shut down and can't defend worker's rights, or because of any number of other outcomes connected with financially related policies of the GOP, the super-wealthy benefit.

While money isn't magic, it is remarkably buoyant and has a tendency to float to the top if the middle and lower classes aren't able to, literally, hold on to it for dear life. At that point, it is like shooting fish in a barrel for Momma and Daddy Warbucks. Maybe that's a bad metaphor.... um, it's like bobbing for dollars for the absurdly financially stable? Well, you get the picture. They are stuffing their pockets, purses, bank accounts (on and off-shore), and probably even their mattresses (some of those folk are... well, eccentric) with your money (cue the cheesy 70s porn music).  And your money is loving the change of scenery (not to mention it no longer has to listen to you going on and on about how it doesn't do for you what it used to do for you).

The role of the travel agent in this indecent little tale is being played by the GOP... technically, it is more like they are being played, like puppets (which is a whole different level of dirty). They are being played by wealthy corporations and the abundantly rich. These corporations and high net-worth individuals (HNWIs) own the GOP as well as an unfortunately large chunk of what used to be a system of government of, for and by the people. That's why they want a double dip recession. Yes, it also would give them something to throw at the man who was Commander in Chief when his forces took down our nation's most diabolical enemy in decades as he runs for what is likely to be a second term in office, but the real strength of doing it is making money for HNWIs. 

As it turns out, they can make plenty of money with a democratic President in place as long as the recession continues. Having a Republican President is just icing on the cake. Just check out  Capgemini and Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management's "World Wealth Report 2011" and you'll see how true it is. While the rest of us were lucky if our income stayed stable, let alone increased any, the HNWIs of the world thrived growing more than 10% last year alone and experiencing growth during the previous years of recession even when there was a democratic President. Let none of us believe that we are equally sharing the burden of the recession. We are not.

You want your money back? Stop sitting around moping about how it left you. Tell it you want it back. That you are sorry for ignoring it. That you won't let Big Corporations and HNWIs jerk it around any more. If you have to pick a fight with the people who took it, so be it. Tell it that you really do value it. Tell it by voting out the GOP. Tell it by insisting on laws that protect the middle and lower classes and their money rather than ones that play into the hand of the super rich. Tell it you care by investing it in companies that give back to the community and to those in need. Because I can tell you this, until we stand up for it and for the middle and lower classes,our money is going to be sleeping at our wealthy "friends" home and sooner or later it will get so comfortable that it may never come home.

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With their ironically named “Pledge to America: The New Republican Agenda,” the GOP continues to bang the gong that declares, “We are Christian mostly in name and not so much in action.”

While I certainly give them credit for wording much of their “new” pledge in a way that sounds...I don't know, nice?, the outcomes of what they are standing for strike me as particularly unChristian.  

Their pledge is particularly focused on business, making it clear that  the primary driver of the party is business, particularly big business, not Christian precepts. Business has one driving force – money, God has one driving force as well – love. You cannot serve God and money, you cannot serve two masters.  They don't even seem to be ashamed of it either.  The Director of their “Pledge to America” is a former lobbyist for AIG, Exxon and Pfizer – it should probably be named, “Pledge to Big Business.”

The pledge, in more than one place, makes it clear that they desire to get rid of the new health care law, replacing it with...well, it's really hard to say from information in the pledge document.  It is clear that while they will repeal the act, they also must like it because they are keeping 7 of its key elements.  As you might expect, their proposal also does not have any real indication of how to control health care spending or regulations designed to keep expenses affordable.  Ultimately, it continues the pledge to big business and leaves the least of these (particularly the sick) to fin for themselves in a ocean of big business sharks (read health insurance companies, large medical corporations and the pharmaceutical industry).  “... inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'” Matthew 25:40.

The GOP's pledge also states that it will be keeping the Bush tax cuts in place, including those for the wealthiest people in the US.  It would seem that part of the solution to make this affordable in terms of the national debt is to also cancel all the unspent stimulus money.  Basically, one focuses on the lifestyles of the rich, powerful and famous, and one focuses of the lifestyles of middle America.  Jesus had some pretty condemning things to say about the rich and spent most of his time ministering with commoners. 

The last piece of the pledge I'd like to address from a Christian point of view is the inexcusable absence of social justice issues.  They are blatantly missing from the pledge.  I realize this was done for political reasons...and that is exactly the problem.  You do not get to imply that you are the party for Christians and not address the issue of social justice in your pledge for moving forward. If Jesus would have written the pledge, you best bet it would have been a recurring theme.

I do not mean to imply that the Democratic Part is by default the Christian party.  They are not.  While they do address issues of social justice more directly, they are a far cry from what a Christian party would look like. I am saying that claiming the Christian monicker for political gain and the manipulation of the every-day Christian is a game of falsehoods that both parties need to stop playing and those of us who claim to be Christians, much like Jesus confronted the Pharisees, need to step up consistently, confidently and boldly to say to our politicians, "stop making false claims in the name of God, stop taking God's name in vain."