With Howard Schultz, there's no there there

As a billionaire, Schultz doesn't understand why many Americans don't see him as the everyman or the prodigal son, who worked himself up from the housing projects in Brooklyn, New York, to found one the nation's most formidable and recognizable companies, Starbucks Coffee. His rags-to-riches story is one that should inspire us, but so far it hasn't.

Schultz and I are a lot alike. We were both raised in poverty, were the first in our families to attend college, and both of our fathers were truck drivers -- arguably the most everyman job, if there ever was one. He went on to become a salesman at Xerox, and many years later founded Starbucks, a multibillion dollar, global corporation. I went on to earn a doctoral degree in government and politics and live a comfortable, middle-class life in Washington. In our own ways, we both achieved the American dream.

For Democrats, we are proof that as a society we have achieved some modicum of equality. For Republicans, our formative years support claims that people are poor because of bad choices, laziness or intergenerational pathologies such as out-of-wedlock births, crime or high rates of single parenthood. We are winners no matter which side of the aisle you occupy.

Yet I do not feel like a winner. Many of the communities that I called home as child -- from Los Angeles to Compton and San Bernardino, California, have gone through bankruptcy or do not have the resources that are necessary to ensure that everyone has a fair shot at the American dream.

Many Americans are struggling with unreasonably high health care costs, are living paycheck to paycheck with little to no savings, and blue-collar and lower-skilled workers are squeezed by wages that have not kept pace with inflation or the cost of living. Their children aren't guaranteed to get the kind of education that could prepare them for moving ahead.

Schultz is critical of health care for all, free college education and sensible tax reform that could begin to chip away at income inequality. He writes these ideas off as far-left schemes meant to trick us into socialism.

When Schultz is called on the carpet for these beliefs, he falls back on the benefits he provided as CEO of Starbucks, which includes health care for all employees and free tuition at Arizona State University. These are good value-aligned business decisions on the part of Schultz and a sharp counterpoint to his critics, but I am not sure he believes that if you don't work for him or another corporation that you should have any of those things.

When asked during the town hall about the single most important factor that most aptly reflects the overall success of the country, Schultz responded that it was access to opportunity and the ability to achieve the American dream. He believes families have lost trust in the promise of the country -- which is the idea that no matter where you begin in life, you can achieve middle-class, or even billionaire, success if you work hard enough.

The truth is: Only about 4% of those born into poverty, or in the bottom 20% of Americans economically, will ever make it to the top fifth of income earners in the United States, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. For most, regardless of race, escaping poverty is akin to winning the lottery -- and Schultz won big.

Howard Schultz is a well-meaning, nice guy. I agree with him that our system is broken and should be fixed. Where we diverge are the reasons why the system is broken and why families have a difficult time achieving the American dream.

Rather than talking about how the big ideas floated by Democrats about how to create a more equitable society won't work or are pure lunacy, perhaps Schultz could use his influence and hardscrabble origin story to spark a conversation about just how difficult is to make it from one side of the tracks to the other, and the kinds of policies that it will take for families to get there. If Schultz is anything like me, there are lot of hardworking people that we left behind in our old neighborhoods, and their stories are worth sharing, too.

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