At the beginning of President Obama’s term, he and a Democrat-dominated Congress, pushed through a bill that has colloquially become known as Obamacare. I have never been a fan of the bill, for multiple reasons. But last week the Congressional Budget Office announced a new cost projection for the bill. The original estimate of about $940 billion over a span of 10 years, which the Obama administration claimed would be enough to effectively reduce overall healthcare costs, was significantly lacking – in fact, it is going to cost about twice that much.

It is not uncommon for the CBO to change initial estimates, but a $900 billion adjustment in either direction is sure to raise a few eyebrows. The obvious question is what can cause an agency like the CBO to be so far off? In this case it is due to an act of deception by the Obama administration. To throw off the estimate, the Obama administration set most of the more expensive pieces of the bill to come into effect in 2014, so that only six of the years in the estimate would include the full program. Obviously, this is something that would cause the inconsistencies we are seeing now.

Unfortunately, our President decided it was more important to push a flawed, unaffordable program through Congress (and hope the American people wouldn’t notice) than to find a solution that could actually help reform our healthcare system. Through these actions, President Obama wasted two years and billions of our tax dollars on a program that he knew we couldn’t afford and has not worked like he hoped. Those two years should have been used to develop a healthcare plan that works and that won’t hurtle the nation into bankruptcy.

It is time for the American people to wake up and realize that the Obama administration has lied to us on countless occasions and pushed through irresponsible legislation just to save face on unrealistic campaign promises. The state of the economy is not entirely Obama’s fault, but at the same time he has not done what was needed to really bring us out of this hole. It is time for us to demand a leader who is economically responsible and not just trying to keep unrealistic promises.