Mark Freeman, a warehouse receiver and distributor at Methodist Park Nicollet Hospital in Minneapolis, reflects on President Obama's address to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and issues his own challenge to corporate CEOs.
I'd like to issue my own challenge to the Chamber of Commerce and the big Wall Street, oil, and insurance companies it represents: Start putting the good of our country before your profits and bonuses. Our communities need good jobs and it's time for corporations to deliver.
I'd like to invite the Chamber and corporate CEOs to come visit my family in Minneapolis. I'd invite them to go and visit Detroit, Philadelphia, and Hartford.
I want them to sit at the kitchen table of the small business owner who was denied a loan by the big banks and could no longer afford to keep her business afloat, to talk to the laid off factory worker whose job was shipped to China, the men and women who are working well into their 70s because they cannot afford to retire, the mother who can't afford healthcare for herself and her child, and the family now living in their car because their home was foreclosed on.
I want them to visit our crumbling schools, roads and bridges, the shuttered businesses and factories, and the abandoned homes left to rot.
The truth is that while corporate CEOs rake in trillions in profits and pay out billions to their top executives, the rest of us continue to fall further and further behind.
It didn't always used to be this way. My parents' generation lived the American Dream; they worked hard, played by the rules, and saw their children enjoy a higher standard of living than they did. At the same age I am now, my parents owned their own home. They were able to put their three children through college. That would be enough for me and my family - but right now it's a dream we're struggling to achieve.
Maybe if CEOs experienced our lives, met our families, and took a look at our communities, they'd do more to help their country. They'd remember that we are all Americans and that we all have an obligation to make our country great. We all have an obligation to make sure the next generation is better off.
