Jason Delisle and Jason Richwine write,

The momentum for fair value accounting is building. The Congressional Budget Office has all but endorsed it, describing fair value as a “more comprehensive” accounting of costs. Scholars with the Federal Reserve, the Financial Economists Roundtable, and the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission are on board as well. Reps. Paul Ryan and Scott Garrett have championed this issue in the House of Representatives, which passed legislation to put federal loan programs on fair value accounting earlier this year. That vote, however, mostly followed party lines, and the Senate has never advanced similar legislation.

If a private firm accounted for its future obligations the way that the government does, it would be prosecuted. One of the ideas I include in Setting National Economic Priorities (at this point, still vaporware) is government accounting reform.