In addressing the current fiscal situation, Rep. Chris Gibson said he favors adopting the so-called bipartisan Cooper-LaTourette budget ("It's compromise, or fiscal chaos," Dec. 17). Constituents should know this plan garnered only 38 votes. This speaks to how balanced most representatives viewed this proposal.
While Cooper-LaTourette is supposedly built around the earlier Bowles-Simpson plan, it is actually far more one-sided and significantly harsher. Although Cooper-LaTourette, as with Bowles-Simpson, calls for $1 of increased revenue for every $2 of budget cuts, its methodology is deceptive.
Bowles-Simpson begins its accounting following expiration of the higher bracket tax cuts. In contrast, Cooper-LaTourette calculations are based on the continuation of all the upper-income Bush tax cuts.
Cooper-LaTourette uses a totally different baseline to compute the ratio between increased revenue and budget cuts. If the Bowles-Simpson baseline is used, the Cooper-LaTourette ratio is closer to a $7 cut for every $1 of increased revenue. This is far from the "balanced plan" that Americans just voted for.
Even worse, Medicare recipients get hit with an inordinate amount of the cuts. Despite mimicking most other plans in setting specific limits on growing Medicare expenditures, Cooper-LaTourette fails to account for the likelihood that there will be an increased number of elderly people requiring medical services.
Other plans, including the extremely conservative plan from Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, calculate their imposed limits on a per-beneficiary basis. Cooper-LaTourette's limits remain fixed no matter how the population changes. This means more hardship.
Support for such a policy comes from a congressman who benefited from advertisements that falsely accused President Barack Obama of cutting Medicare. Mr. Gibson should remember that his term lasts only two years.
AL ORMSBY
Saratoga Springs