On the recordFebruary 7, 2012
First of all, let me just begin by saying I appreciate the gentleman's effort with regard to this legislation. I appreciate also the bipartisan nature and intentions behind the amendment as well. There are unquestionably circumstances where accrual accounting is the best way, the most appropriate way to display the Federal Government's budgetary costs and obligations. Now, as you know, the underlying bill does focus on one such area where accrual accounting has long been in use, and what it does then is to try to build upon those years of experience and try to study the application of that as applied to Federal credit programs. The underlying bill, I should say as an aside, also includes a study of another area--because I know there's a question of how far are we going in these things--where it might be appropriate to extend this, and this is with regard to the Federal insurance programs. Why is that? Well, it's because we don't have as many studies on that. I might just add to the point of the gentleman from Maryland before, there have been a number of references on an area that we're looking to. CBO has done some with regard to student loans, with regard to housing, with regard to SBA and energy. CBO has issued a number of reports with fair value accounting included, and that is why we included it in this bill. Again, I appreciate the gentleman's work on this amendment. I oppose it as it stands now, however.
