The View from Right Field

The More Things Change

When I saw an advertisement for the new First Class private suites on Emirates flights from New York’s JFK airport to Dubai*, I was reminded so much of the roomettes and suites they used to have on the El Capitan and Twentieth Century Limited and all those other great trains. It’s amazing. All these years, all those changes, and, in some ways, things wind up being not all that much different.

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* For pictures of the suites, see the Emirates website here.

23rd Annual Cubs Convention – 2008

I wanted to pass on a few things from the 23rd Annual Cubs Convention (January 18-20, 2008). While this may seem a little late, it really isn’t; pitchers and catchers don’t report until February 14.

First, a comment on the weather. If the Cubs’ home opener always seems like the last day of winter in Chicago, the Cubs Convention is usually on one of the coldest or snowiest weekends of the winter. This year it was the cold. But it’s okay; it’s tradition.

On WGN Radio’s Sports Central show Friday night, Jim Hendry said that he had not seen a manager put young kids in right away like Lou Piniella did in 2007. When I heard him say that, I wanted to stand up and yell that maybe that was because Hendry had hired Dusty Baker for four years, and Dusty has never seen a veteran he did not like or an old utility infielder he wouldn’t play.

Also on Sports Central, Hendry said he had not seen Dontrelle Willis pitch before he traded him to the Marlins. I have previously said that I won’t blame Hendry for that trade. I will blame him, however, for apparently not having an organization in place to tell him about Willis. (I saw Dontrelle pitch at Kane County, in the Class A Midwest League, 2½ months after the trade. I was so impressed I checked on him when I got home, something I don’t normally do. When I saw he had been traded by the Cubs, I was depressed. Even I could tell he was going to be good.)

At "Meet Cubs Baseball Management" Saturday morning, Hendry said that Kerry Wood had basically told him: pay me what you think is fair. According to Hendry, Wood passed up one-year contracts for more money and even two-year contracts to stay with the Cubs.

During "Not for Women Only" with Kathy O’Malley and Judy Markey, the players were asked who was the craziest guy they had ever played with. Matt Murton said Greg Maddux. (If the Cubs don’t want Murton, maybe they can trade him to the Padres. They need a left fielder.)

At "Life as a Minor," in response to a question about nicknames, Jeff Samardzija said that just about any way his name gets pronounced is a nickname. He also said that Rocky Roquet’s name (last name pronounced "Ro-kay") is a nickname itself.

One of the best panels was "8-8-88 … Or the Day After" with Rick Sutcliffe, Ryne Sandberg, Jody Davis, Andre Dawson, Les Lancaster, and Doug Dascenzo. This past year Doug managed the Fort Wayne Wizards while Ryno managed the Peoria Chiefs (both in the Midwest League). Doug said (I think it was Doug, though it might have been Ryno) that while the minor leagues are supposed to be about development, when Peoria played Fort Wayne, development stopped and winning was the only thing that mattered. (You have to remember, when Ryno was inducted into the Hall of Fame, Doug was one of the players Ryno mentioned in his speech.)

There was a lot of talk about how Davis, Lancaster, Al Nipper and Greg Maddux all went sliding on the tarp, doing running belly flops, during the rain delay that night. As Davis and Lancaster told the story, after doing it, they were called into the office and fined. They were told about the rough spots they could have landed on, about Lancaster having just had his appendix out, and – what worried management the most – that Maddux could have gotten hurt!

Finally, in calling on a woman to ask a question, Wayne Messmer identified her as the lady "wearing Cardinal red for some ungodly reason."

The Real Problem in Cook County, Illinois

The main headline in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune read: "County bilked in scam; 8 charged; $1.6 million in training funds gone". While that is bad, the main problem in Cook County is not $1.6 million being stolen. The main problem in Cook County is the tens of millions of dollars and more that is wasted on programs that don’t work and on people whose work doesn’t accomplish anything.

People who get cushy jobs because of who their relatives are or because of who they do political work for. Programs that are poorly designed, and departments that are poorly run. Money that is spent but doesn’t accomplish anything. Employees who do work that doesn’t help people.

Those are the real problems in Cook County. But until the voters of Cook County care enough to elect candidates who are willing and capable of addressing these things (and we didn’t last time), the real problems of Cook County will just go on and on.

Ethanol, Hurricanes, and Snow Shoveling

Iowa had ethanol. Florida has low-cost hurricane insurance. Just as almost none of the major candidates could resist the siren call of ethanol in Iowa (the exception was John McCain, but then he did a pretty good job of resisting the North Vietnamese, too), some candidates are having trouble saying no to calls for what would in effect be federal subsidies for hurricane insurance in Florida.

After the last major hurricane hit Florida, insurance companies raised their rates for hurricane coverage in Florida. The problem is that more and more people are moving to Florida and building expensive houses right next to the water. Of course, that means big claims for the insurance companies when hurricanes hit. The insurance companies decided, to protect themselves, they needed to raise rates.

People in Florida like living near the water, but they don’t like paying for privilege, so Florida’s governor got the state legislature to pass a law providing for low-cost hurricane insurance backed by the State. It sounded great, but then even the governor started trying to figure out where the State would get the money to pay all the claims the next time a really big hurricane hits. The problem was that the State was not collecting enough money in premiums. And when the next hurricane does hit, the State is not going to have a lot of spare cash laying around to bail out the hurricane insurance fund.

So, like too many Americans all over this country, the governor of Florida and other people from Florida came up with the idea of getting the whole country to help pay for hurricane claims in Florida if, and when, the state fund runs out of money. Baloney – and I don’t mean Oscar Mayer. If people want to live in an area where hurricanes are likely to hit, then they have to either take the risk or pay the real price for hurricane insurance.

It’s actually a lot like California. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune a couple of years ago (March 22, 2006), 86% of the homeowners in California did not have earthquake insurance. People said the insurance was too expensive, and anyway, they figured the government would bail them, if anything ever did happen. According to the Tribune:

"In the insurance industry that mind-set is jokingly known as the ‘Air Force One Solution’ – the notion that the president surely would fly over a disaster zone dropping $100 bills from his plane."

Now the people in Florida are taking the same tack, and their politicians are trying to use Florida’s primary as the way to get presidential candidates to support their position.

Let’s hope our presidential candidates will have a little more backbone in Florida than they did in Iowa. And, if they don’t, then maybe those of us who live in Illinois can demand snow shoveling insurance when primary time comes here.

[1/26/08 (2:50 p.m.): Corrected typographical error in quotation from Chicago Tribune.]
[2/2/08 (12:05 p.m.): Corrected typographical error in last paragraph.]

Are Foster Children a President's Priority?

In an article on Senator Clinton, Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne said:

"There is compassion in Clinton's wonkiness. At a rally in Penacook on Saturday, she spoke with energy about the struggles of foster parents and the suffering of foster children. She pledged to make their problems a priority of her presidency, even if there are no headlines in it. She sounded absolutely believable."

I do not doubt that Senator Clinton was believable and really does care about foster children. The question is why is a candidate for President of the United States saying foster children will be one of her priorities? The problems of foster children and the parents who help them are important, but they are the job of the states. If helping foster children is one of your big priorities, why aren’t you running for governor, instead of president?

Unfortunately, this is a problem we have today in spades. At every level of government, we have politicians who think it is their job to do something about every problem. States try to solve global warming. Presidents worry about grade school science scores. City councils pass resolutions on foreign relations.

This is silly. We have different levels of government for a reason. Our Founding Fathers had the right idea back in 1787 when the Constitutional Convention gave us a federal system. Geography and numbers made us too big for just one government back then, and that is even more true today. The beauty of the federal system is that it takes the job of governing and divides it up into smaller pieces. Nobody can do it all. The key is to divide up the job into manageable pieces (or at least pieces that are not too unmanageable), and then have each level of government do its own job.

Dividing the job this way is smart for several reasons. First, it means that each level of government has less to do, which is good because when government tries to do too much, it fails, both at the extra things it tries to do that it should not be doing and at the necessary things it really should be doing.

Second, and just as important, is the idea that responsibilities should be allocated to each level of government based on what it has the knowledge and the ability to do. The key to making good decisions is knowledge. The closer you are to a problem, the more knowledge you should have about the problem. If a problem is too far above or too far below or too far away from you, you will not have the knowledge about the problem that you need to be able to solve it. While having the government that is closest to a problem and knows the most about a problem, decide how to solve the problem does not guarantee the decision will be right, it does increase the chances.

Knowledge is not only important in terms of knowing about a problem; knowledge is also important with respect to knowing the best solution. A particular problem may need different solutions in different communities or different areas. But how are we to know this? Generally, the government that is closest to a problem not only will have the most knowledge about the problem but also will have the most knowledge about what solution will work in its area and for its people. In fact, having the most knowledge about what solution is best in a particular area and for a particular group of people is probably even more important than having the most knowledge about the problem itself. A higher level of government might know more about all of the facets of a problem, but it will probably know much less about what solution will work in a particular area. Without knowledge about what solution is most likely to work, knowledge about a problem is not all that useful.

The third reason for federalism is failure. The fact is that many of the things governments do fail, even when they are done by the government with the most knowledge about the problem and the most knowledge about the possible solutions. Federalism allows for this by letting governments in different areas try different solutions, which gives us a better chance to ultimately determine what the best solution is. It also means that failed solutions will affect fewer people and cause less damage.*

While the arguments listed above would, on average, tend to push problems and their solutions down to lower levels of government, there are problems that must be handled at higher levels. In some cases lower levels do not have the knowledge (even though they may think they do). In other cases, lower levels of government may not have the power to really do anything abut the problem. An example of the former would be the ordinance that the Village of Oak Park passed back in 1982 (or so) declaring Oak Park a nuclear-free zone. While Soviets never attacked Oak Park and nobody ever tried to locate a nuclear power plant in Oak Park, I do not think the ordinance had anything to do with either. The fact is that the Trustees of Oak Park did not have enough knowledge to know what to do about either of those issues, but it made them feel good to pass the ordinance, so they did it.

A current example of the latter is the anti-global warming law passed by the state of California. Even if California really does know enough about global warming to know how to solve the problem, California does not have the power to effectively do anything about it. The California government has just imposed future costs on its citizens without accomplishing anything, except for making themselves feel good.

Which brings me to the national government, and especially the President. Hillary Clinton said she intends to make the problems of foster children and foster parents "a priority" of her presidency. It is hard to believe that the federal government has the most knowledge about the problems of foster care and the solutions to those problems, but even if it does, is this what the President should be worrying about?

Similarly, the current administration has spent a lot of time and effort on elementary and secondary education. But this is not just George Bush. As I have said before, there were times in 2004 when Bush and Kerry seemed like they were running for president of the school board, instead of president of the United States. Is this something the President knows the most about? Aren’t there other things that he should be spending his time on?

In my view, the President needs to focus on those things that only a president can do. There is plenty for the President to do without taking on other people’s jobs, too. Other people at other levels of government can deal with foster children or improving elementary and secondary education. The President may think those other people do not have the right answer to those problems, the President still should not deal with them because he has other things to do that only he can do.

If the President tries to do too much, there is a huge risk that he or she will not do as good of a job at those things only he or she can do. When the United States was struggling to find the right strategy in Iraq, I was incredibly frustrated to hear President Bush talking about No Child Left Behind. We were not getting Iraq right, and that was his number one job. He should not have been doing things he did not have to do, things that are more appropriately the job of other levels of government, while we were floundering in Iraq.

For the United States federalism is not just a good system, it is a necessary system. Our country is too big for just one government. A federal system of government divides up the duties of government, assigning them to those levels of government with the most knowledge about particular problems and the best solutions for them. When a government or an official tries to do things which are not properly their responsibility, they too often fail at them, as well as failing at those things which are properly their responsibility.

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* Obviously, there are other reasons why federalism is good. Protecting freedom by dividing up power between different governments is an important. However, I am focusing on just this one reason in this post.

Leaving Iraq: Who Decides When and How Fast

Sunday’s Chicago Tribune reported that, while he was in Kuwait, "President Bush said … the military is on track with its plan to withdraw forces [from Iraq] but that the commanders on the ground would be allowed to ‘slow her down’ to maintain improved security there." The article continued:

"… Bush conferred privately over troop withdrawal numbers with Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq … .

The two discussed possible scenarios for withdrawing more troops than planned by July as part of the president's ‘surge’ strategy, but Bush reiterated that any future withdrawals would depend on ‘conditions on the ground.’

… ‘My attitude is, if he didn't want to continue the drawdown, that's fine with me, in order to make sure we succeed. I said to the general, "If you want to slow her down, fine, it's up to you."’"

While it is a little unclear exactly what the President meant, it appears he was saying that it will be General Petraeus, and not him, who be deciding how quickly U.S. troops are withdrawn from Iraq. If that is what President Bush meant, I very much disagree. Let me explain.

For President Bush to put the decision as to the timing and speed of any withdrawal of our forces from Iraq on General Petraeus is both wrong and unfair. It is wrong because that decision, in the case of Iraq, is too political and too basic to have a purely military answer. In some situations a withdrawal of forces is mostly a military matter. In Iraq today, it is the ultimate decision, involving an evaluation of political and military considerations, both inside and outside of Iraq, that is not within General Petraeus’s job description.

It is also unfair to put this decision on General Petraeus because he is a career military officer whose job is to follow orders, not make decisions of such a deeply political nature. The principle of civilian control of the military preserves the right of our elected officials to make fundamental decisions and it protects our military from being used for political purposes.

Ultimately, the decision of when and how fast we leave Iraq must be made at the highest level. General Petraeus may be the commanding general, but President Bush is the commander-in-chief. President Bush should listen to General Petraeus’s recommendation, but the decision is President Bush’s and nobody else’s.

A Reason for Limited Government

The best way to limit the number of stupid decisions made by government is to limit the number of decisions made by government.

Our Children's Future

Robert Samuelson has an interesting take on the promises the various presidential candidates are making about protecting the future of our children. (See here.) To the extent some of his numbers are based on Congressional Budget Office projections, I am hopeful things may not be quite as bad as he says. The CBO does, after all, have a tendency to underestimate how well the economy will do, especially when it is projecting the benefits of tax cuts. Even if the CBO is off a little, however, the problem is real and it is coming.

But maybe this is why so many politicians are worried about healthcare for children. They want to make sure the kids are healthy so they can work long enough to pay for all of our Social Security and Medicare and drug benefits.

The Heck With Iowa and New Hampshire. I Want a Chance.

As the campaigns (or what is left of them) leave Iowa and get ready for New Hampshire, let me make a couple of comments, not on the results but on the process.

First, obviously the whole nomination process takes too long, finishes too quickly, and both starts and ends too early. It is not good to have the presidential campaign start almost two years before the election – assuming it didn’t start even earlier. (An unaffiliated group ran TV ads for Hillary in New Hampshire as far back as August of 2005.)

One of the problems with the long campaign is that it is hard enough for Congress to do anything intelligent in regular times, let alone during a campaign. When campaigns get too long, we get laws and decisions out of Congress that are even dumber than normal. Sometimes, the government actually needs to make hard decisions. Congress can’t seem to do that during election season, and with election season getting longer, there is even less time for the politicians in Washington to actually do what is right.

Second, making the campaign as long as it is means that the news media runs out of new things to write about the candidates even quicker (because the candidates keep giving the same basic speech over and over again), so they turn to writing about who’s ahead, as opposed to who is saying what.

This horse race mentality, which is constantly emphasized and re-emphasized by the media, makes lots of states want to go first because going first gets you the chance to actually have an impact on the election. These states then try to leapfrog each other to get the earliest date, which results in the first primaries and caucuses coming earlier and earlier each time. That makes the campaign longer and longer, and that makes the time for the people in Washington to deal with those problems that really need to be dealt with even shorter.

But not only do the primaries/caucuses need to start later, they also need to be more spread out. Having so many primaries so close to each other, and having so many primaries on one day, like on February 5, which is this year’s "Super Tuesday," makes it almost impossible for anybody to have a chance except those few candidates who have big piles of money and/or some kind of media-driven momentum from the first couple of primaries/caucuses. That isn’t good because it unnecessarily limits the number of the candidates and it effectively limits the people who can be a candidate.

But even those people who suggest a more intelligent schedule for the primaries/caucuses, i.e., one that starts later and is more spread out, still give place of honor to Iowa and New Hampshire.

Well, I disagree – because I want a chance to pick who our President will be and because I want a chance to pick between more than just the two people who have been selected by Iowa and New Hampshire and anointed by the news media. I don’t see why Iowa and New Hampshire get to have the first caucus and primary every time. So they have "always" had it. So they think it is tradition. So what.

My objection to Iowa and New Hampshire always going first is not based on the fact that neither Iowa nor New Hampshire is reflective of the country as a whole. That’s not it. I’m talking about wanting a chance to actually help pick the candidates myself.

For example, I resent the fact that Iowa gets to kick out candidates like Chris Dodd and Joe Biden. They are long-time senators. They have the experience to do the job. But because they somehow did not connect with enough people in Iowa and because the news media has decided that once you have "lost," they won’t report on you, except to talk about when you are going to withdraw, I don’t get to pick them. The point is not that Iowa picks the winner (it often doesn’t). The point is that it gets to kick out good candidates, and I don’t like that.

Also, it would be nice some year to get to participate in the kind of politicking that goes on in Iowa and New Hampshire. It would be nice to get to see and hear the candidates up front and personal. I don’t see why people in Iowa and New Hampshire get to have it all the time and I don’t get to have it ever.

Obviously, none of the candidates is going to say that Iowa and New Hampshire shouldn’t be first. Even if they believe it, none of them is willing to say it. It would be worse than coming out against St. Ethanol, and of the major candidates only John McCain had the courage to do that. (A thought: Isn’t ethanol the perfect reason why Iowa shouldn’t be first. Think of all the money wasted on ethanol because Iowa’s caucuses are first, and almost every presidential candidate is more concerned about doing well in Iowa than saying what is right.)

Iowa and New Hampshire shouldn’t always be first. Other states and other voters should get a chance, too. After all, Lincoln didn’t talk about a government "of the people of Iowa and New Hampshire, by the people of Iowa and New Hampshire, and for the people of Iowa and New Hampshire". It’s time the rest of us had a chance, a real chance, a chance that really means something, to pick the people who run for President. Iowa and New Hampshire have had their turn. It’s time for the rest of us to have a chance to go first.

Iraq

More important than anything I might write is this. I have not read this blog in the past. I only came upon it because it was referenced in a blog that I do look at. May our prayers be with his wife and family.