TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Okay, well, they didn’t do that last part—but they certainly should have. The administration killed the CLASS Act.

The CLASS Act was a part of the President’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, and one of the key components that made the legislation look like it was fiscally responsible. Because the CLASS Act took in premiums without paying benefits for the first ten years, the CBO scored it as reducing the deficit by $72 billion over ten years—a huge chunk of the $120 billion or so the CBO said PPACA as a whole would reduce the deficit.

The problem with this, of course, is that it’s fictitious. Made up. Not real. After those initial ten years, the CLASS Act was a fiscal train wreck that would have made our already disastrous fiscal situation even worse.

And the administration knew this while claiming publicly that PPACA would help solve our fiscal disaster.

It was always obvious that wasn’t true, but now we know the administration intentionally inflated PPACA’s revenue with unworkable programs so they could pass it. In other words, they lied to the public about the program so they could pass it.

Perhaps that’s how politics works, but that’s not how Obama said he would conduct his administration. That’s not change, and it certainly doesn’t inspire hope. Instead, it inspires resigned cynicism.

Yes We Can, Indeed.