Tilting at windmills.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Assessing President Barack Obama's government - Column

Hidden capital

There is a problem with government accounting that drives me around the bend, but that I rarely see noted elsewhere. When corporations build a factory, it is considered a positive, the creation of a capital asset. But when government builds a road or a school, it's an expense. It's simply spending money, treated the same as the most frivolous waste. Why can't we have a system of accounting that gives government credit for the creation of genuine assets like bridges and schools?

Consider the alternative

I agree with those who say both parties are responsible for the sorry state of Washington, but isn't it time to face the fact that much more than half the guilt lies with the Republicans? I say this even though I agree with much of the criticism of the Democratic Party and of Barack Obama that I find in the words of the liberal commentariat, in the centrist Matt Miller's call for a third party, and even in Ron Suskind's new book Confidence Men. But I also think it is foolish for thoughtful Americans to waste much more time focusing on the shortcomings of the Democrats and of the president. They indulged in a similar orgy of faultfinding in 2010, with the result that too many of them failed to vote and the country elected the worst House of Representatives in memory. There is a real danger that next year the Democrats will lose not only the presidency but also the House and the Senate.

To wake up to the danger, think about your choice. Obama and the Democratic Congress gave us national health care and Wall Street reform. Both were admittedly far from perfect. But do you really think that a Republican administration and Congress would have done--or will do--better?

Who gave us gays serving openly in the military, which had been such a great goal of liberals? It wasn't Bill Clinton or any Republican. Who got Osama bin Laden, which was a goal of conservatives, as well as the rest of us? It wasn't George W. Bush. Who was the first president to take on the issue of teacher quality, one of moderate Matt Miller's main concerns? Neither Clinton nor Bush faced it and did something about it, as Barack Obama and Arne Duncan have done with their Race to the Top program.

The company you keep

One of the most disturbing trends is the one away from Obama among so many liberal American Jews. Are they going to let themselves be swayed by the right wing that has taken over Israel? That Rick Perry and his ilk are standing 100 percent behind Israel's present leaders--see Perry's recent Wall Street Journal oped "The US Must Support Israel at the UN" and the article "House GOP Finds a Growing Bond with Netanyahu" in the New York Times--should be warning enough against following Netanyahu and his American apologists. Thomas Friedman puts it bluntly, calling Netanyahu's "the most diplomatically inept and strategically incompetent government in Israel's history."

They know not what he does

One little-noted Obama accomplishment was recently acknowledged by Kevin Sack in the New York Times. He reports that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of uninsured young adults aged eighteen to twenty-five has dropped by a margin of 900,000. This reduction was recorded just one year after the effective date of the Affordable Care Act, which made parents' health insurance cover their dependents up to age twenty-six. Before, typical insurers had dropped coverage at age eighteen or twenty-one.

The Times ran this story on its front page...