Monday Open Thread [3.11.2013]

Welcome to Monday, people. This is one of those Mondays where the list of stuff to get done when you left on Friday had magically trippled by 8:30AM. And don’t get me started on the hour that Daylight Savings Time stole from me.

President Obama will be announcing as Labor Secretary the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez. The GOP won’t be interested in any pick for Labor Secretary, but Mr. Perez has a special qualification to get under the skin of the GOP:

The nomination, which requires Senate confirmation, could face a backlash from Republicans over Justice Department activities. Notably, Perez has filed civil rights lawsuits against law enforcement officials — including one last year against Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the brash Maricopa County, Ariz., lawman. The suit accuses Arpaio’s department of a “pattern of unconstitutional conduct” against Latinos in the state, which has led the nation in clamping down on illegal immigrants.

ProPublica does some amazing journalistic work — and they’ve put together a map that shows were the SBA is lending money to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy in flood zones. This isn’t exactly smart policy — sending government funds where they will be washed away again. The story:

A WNYC and ProPublica analysis of federal data shows at least 10,500 home and business owners have been approved for $766 million in SBA disaster loans to rebuild in areas that the government now says could flood again in the next big storm. The data, which shows loans approved through mid-February, was obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.

More loans could be going to flood-prone areas. The analysis did not cover Long Island or Connecticut.

The loans require borrowers to get flood insurance, which in turn could encourage some to rebuild properties to be more flood-resistant. However, for many owners there’s no requirement they raise their properties to the heights FEMA recommends.

The result: the federal government is helping people rebuild despite the risk that flooding will again destroy the properties.

The Five Biggest Lies About Entitlement Programs:

Lie No. 3: Social Security and Medicare are $60 trillion in the hole.

As efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare gather steam in the budget wrangling in Washington, you’ll hear these mega-trillions being thrown around more and more. Beware. They’re numbers designed to terrify, not edify.

The assertion comes from something called the “infinite horizon” projection. It’s a calculation of funding gaps projected out to the limitless future and then converted to present value — meaning what the cost would be if we had to pay it all today. For Social Security, the figure was $20.5 trillion, as reported in the program trustees’ latest report. For Medicare, the number comes to about $42.7 trillion.

Even professional actuaries say this calculation is bogus. In 2003, when it was first inserted into Social Security’s annual report, the American Academy of Actuaries warned the trustees that the infinite projection provides “little if any useful information” and is “likely to mislead anyone lacking technical expertise … into believing that the program is in far worse financial condition than is actually indicated.”

Worth reading the whole thing.

What interests you today?