The View from Right Field

Being President: President Obama Just Doesn’t Get It

President Obama has been talking about what went wrong with the Obamacare rollout, and it’s pretty clear that the one person who he thinks is not to blame is – himself.

Back on November 8, President Obama said: “I promise you, nobody has been more frustrated.  I wanted to go in and fix it myself, but I don't write code.”

Then, in a press conference on November 14, the President made these comments:

"I was not informed directly that the Web site would not be working ... the way it was supposed to.  Had I been informed, I wouldn't be going out saying, ‘Boy, this is going to be great.’”

“What we're also discovering is that insurance is complicated to buy.”

On Thursday, President Obama said this to Chris Matthews of MSNBC:

“The challenge, I think, that we have going forward is not so much my personal management style or particular issues around White House organization.  It actually has to do with what I referred to earlier, which is we have these big agencies, some of which are outdated, some of which are not designed properly ….  The White House is just a tiny part of what is a huge, widespread organization with increasingly complex tasks in a complex world.”

A few comments:  First, President Obama is trying to make it seem like he is just as much a victim of the failed Obamacare rollout as anybody else.  That's not true.  I understand that the President does not “write code” – though if he had had some knowledge about computers, he might have understood how complicated this thing was going to be – but he is in charge of getting things done.  It isn’t his job to write code, but it is his job to appoint people to make sure things get done properly.  It may not be his fault that the website didn’t work, but it is his fault he didn’t appoint the right people to do the job.

Second, it’s also his fault that he wasn’t told that the website would not be working.  It is the president’s job to make sure he gets the information he needs to do his job.  If President Obama didn’t get the information he needed, that is his fault – or the fault of people he appointed, in which case, as above, it is his fault for not appointing the right people to make sure he got the information he needed.

Third: “What we're also discovering is that insurance is complicated to buy.”  He must really have lived his life in a bubble if he is only discovering that now. 

Fourth, President Obama is complaining about “outdated” government agencies, “some of which are not properly designed,” and a “complex world.”  Once again, he must have lived his life, even as a politician, in a bubble if he is only figuring that out now.

But there is a solution to the President’s complaint about “outdated” government agencies, “some of which are not properly designed,” and a “complex world”:  It’s called federalism.  Instead of the federal government trying to do everything for everybody, we divide stuff up among the different levels of government.  The federal government does some things, the things that need to be done on a national scale, like defense, regulating interstate commerce, etc.  Other things, which don’t need to be handled by the national government, can be done by the states and local government.  Education is a prime example here.  The federal government doesn’t need to set curricula for elementary education.  States can do it – or, even better, local government.  And other things we can leave to the people themselves to make their own choices.  Government doesn’t need to be involved at all.

By dividing up government’s jobs among the various levels of government, we give each level of government less to do.  We also give each level of government the responsibility to do those things that it can do best.  With fewer things to do, and with the responsibility to do only those things that it is best able to do, each level of government will do a better job.  And we will get better government.

Hiring Managers – and Coaches

Theo Epstein knows how to talk the talk when it comes to hiring managers.  Everything he said yesterday about Rick Renteria was great.  The only trouble was he said basically the same thing two years about when he hired Dale Sveum.  And Jim Hendry said it when he hired Mike Quade.  And so on and so on.  It’s not what you say that counts; it’s what you do.

Which brings me to the question of coaches.  Theo talked about the importance of getting the right coaches yesterday, too:

"Just find as many coaches as we can that actually impact players.  It sounds obvious – that's the coaches' job – but I think it takes a special personality as well as experience and having the technical knowledge.  It takes a special personality to be able to actually reach the modern player and to dig deep and engage and relate to them – not to relate to a player on a perfunctory level – but to really get in deep and find out what makes them tick and impact them on and off the field in positive way.

That's what we were looking for. … We wanted to work with Rick and try to provide him with as many weapons as possible so he can impact all 25 guys."

Which is right.  But getting the talk right is one thing.  Getting the action right is what counts.  We had a great coach in Dave McKay.  He wasn’t just a first base coach.  He was the outfield coach, too.  I don’t know how he did it, but he turned Alfonso Soriano into a decent left fielder.  For five years, Alfonso was a real liability in left field.  Somehow Dave reached him and got him much better.

But because Cubs management took so long to hire a manager, Dave McKay left and took a job in Arizona.  At a time when we could have really used his skills as on outfield coach to help kids like Junior Lake, Dave will be helping Arizona, not us. 

The Cubs needed to figure out a way to keep Dave McKay, but they didn’t get it done.  Talk is easy; action is hard.  The Cubs messed up on Dave McKay. 

Cubs Season Tickets. Available. Big Time.

I went to the Cubs season ticket relocation event today.  If you are renewing your season tickets and might want to relocate (i.e., upgrade) your seats (i.e., pay more money), the Cubs let you come to the park to see what is available.  I went.  I didn’t change my seats; I got some really good ones last year, so there was no need to.  But I did have a couple of reactions.

My first reaction (as well as my second and third) was: Wow!  They have a lot of seats available.  For that matter, they have a lot of good seats available (assuming you are willing to put a second mortgage on the house and sell off a couple of kids).  It wasn’t just seats down the line or way back in the lower deck (where your view is blocked by the skyboxes).  I am talking about terrace boxes or upper deck boxes in good locations.  They even had field boxes, and a few club boxes, available.  And for them to be available today (I am pretty far down the seniority list, having only bought season tickets for the first time in 2012), shows that not only are people not renewing, but they aren’t upgrading either.

Once they get done letting current season ticket holders upgrade, they will let people on the waiting list come in and buy.  I wonder how many will.  I realize I am probably drinking the Kool-Aid® [brand powdered drink mix*], but I am really hopeful for 2015.  The Cubs have really restocked the farm system.  There seems to be a lot of talent there, and you need a lot of talent because not everybody turns out like you hope they will.  But if you have a lot of prospects, you don’t need them all to turn out.  You only need some.  So I’m hopeful.

As I was leaving, I saw Bruce Miles of the Daily Herald.  The writers were getting a chance to interview Rick Renteria today.  You should look in the paper tomorrow for the story.
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* Sorry.  That is my old lawyer training kicking in.  A trademark, like Kool-Aid®, should not be used as a noun.  It is, rather, an adjective.  In other words, you don’t use a Band-Aid®, you use a Band-Aid® brand adhesive bandage.  Therefore, Kool-Aid® brand powdered drink mix.

Illinois' Pension Mess: What Will the Democrats Do?

Dan Montgomery, president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, had this to say on the proposed deal for Illinois’s public employee pension mess:

“‘You can see the deep level of anger and frustration from public employees and teachers [about the proposed plan] because every year we made our payments,’ said Montgomery, who noted the state failed to pay its proper employer share.  ‘Our teachers feel very much like the state used our pension contributions like a credit card.’”

I understand Mr. Montgomery’s frustration.  The State of Illinois has not met its obligations to its teachers and employees.  Illinois promised these people certain pension benefits, and it took the contributions they made for their pensions.  But when it came time for the State to make its own contribution, it didn’t do it. 

What confuses me, however, is why Mr. Montgomery and his union think the solution to their problem lies with the very people who created the mess in the first place.  For the last eleven years, Democrats have controlled both houses of the state legislature and the governorship.  And yet Mr. Montgomery is looking for Democrats to help him.

I suppose the public employees’ unions object that the Republicans want to cut their pensions.  They don’t.  Republicans understand that pensions already earned cannot be cut – and that they need to actually be funded.  What Republicans also understand, and what too many Democrats have refused to acknowledge for years, is that the amount of pensions earned in the future for future service need to be reduced.

State employees, or at least their union leaders, don’t seem to understand this – so they keep going back to Democrats to prevent these “cuts.”  Well, they can try, and if the reductions are not approved, the old pension rates will stay in place, even for future service.  Except that they won’t get paid.  Eventually, the debt will get so high, and the annual payments will get so big, that Illinois will go bankrupt.  Illinois has gone bankrupt before.  It can go bankrupt again.  All we have to do is keep going like we have for the last eleven years.
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UPDATE (12/2/13 2:40 pm): I may have slightly overspoke when I said Illinois went “bankrupt” before.  See here versus here.  Illinois certainly did default on interest payments in 1841, and taxes had to be raised four years later.  The Illinois and Michigan Canal was mortgaged.  Eventually, the last of the debts incurred in 1837 were paid off in 1880.  Whether that was an official “bankruptcy,” I don’t know.