The Congressional Budget Office is recommending changes in how the government accounts for programs that dominate the residential mortgage market, which could make the FHA program less at-tractive, politically, and shape the post-Fannie/Freddie market. In a pair of recent reports, the CBO said the government should adopt fair-value accounting for assessing the cost of the FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the federal budget. Congress currently uses special rules mandated by the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 in creating annual budgets for the FHA, while the government-sponsored enterprises are...