Gilbert Gutknecht: “To a lot of average Americans, the language of Washington is very difficult to understand. We heard about these…”

“To a lot of average Americans, the language of Washington is very difficult to understand. We heard about these draconian cuts in education programs, in student loans, when in fact student loans were going up at greater than the inflation rate, but we were slowing the rate of growth. In Washington a lot of people talk about cuts in spending, when all we are really talking about is slowing the rate of growth in spending. I think one of the greatest Washingtonspeak expressions that was created many years ago is this comment or term 'trust Fund.' It has a nice ring to it. In fact, if we talk to our constituents and use the term 'trust fund,' they think, trust, fund, that there must be a fund there somewhere. What they do not understand, and particularly with social security, and perhaps we need to do a better job ourselves of explaining it to our colleagues, because I think when they think of social security, they think of a pension fund. Frankly, it is not a pension fund in the classic sense, it is a pay-as-you-go system.”