I don't know what summit The Sun's editorial board was watching ("Disagreeing to agree," Feb. 26) but apparently they missed Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin blowing the lid off of the alleged budget savings in the Congressional Budget Office score of the Senate health care bill (the president's release earlier in the week could not be scored by CBO).

As Representative Ryan pointed out, when you removed the smoke and mirrors, $131 billion in savings is based on 10 years of revenue and 6 years of costs; necessary elements of reform were removed from of the health care legislation because of their adverse cost effect to the Senate plan, to the tune of $371 billion; and "savings" that are in fact obligated to pay future entitlements are double-counted. Taking that into account, you go from $131 billion in savings for the first 10 years to $460 billion in deficits, and then $1.4 trillion in deficits for the second 10 years.

While The Sun is entitled to its own opinion, it is not entitled to its own facts. And I would add that I never read a single fact I cite above in reading your newspaper.

Paul N. Jackson, Cockeysville

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