Kilmer focuses on jobs, and on Congress not doing its job
BREMERTON — Signs in the Norm Dicks Government Center still direct visitors to the offices of the building's namesake.
It's not Dicks' office anymore, but the signage is somewhat representative of the task ahead for his successor, Democrat Derek Kilmer of Gig Harbor.
Dicks left a mark in both Washingtons, but life and Congress move on.
That much was clear this week when the Navy announced it was freezing hiring, putting on hold more than 500 jobs that were supposed to be offered at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
"The most recent episode of budget uncertainty at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard is a prime example of what's wrong with Congress," Kilmer said in a prepared statement. "Even though we have the work and the workers, the shipyard career fair had to be postponed because Congress won't do its job,"
With just two weeks in Congress under his belt, Kilmer can continue to say he's not part of the problem yet. But it is his job, along with 434 others, to do something about it.
After getting sworn in on Jan. 3, Kilmer became one of 17 new members of Congress joining the New Democrat Coalition, a group purporting to operate from the principal that "our democracy is at risk when ideology overpowers progress." The coalition says it will focus on economic growth.
Kilmer was named to the House Armed Services Committee, an important post, he said, for helping set national security policy and for someone who represents such a military-dependent area. He was also named to the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, which he said can shape policy encouraging innovation and improving the country's economic growth and competitiveness.
This past week Kilmer hosted an open house in his office on the fifth floor of the government center and embarked on a "listening tour," visiting local workplaces and advertising those visits as "Kilmer at Your Company."
When he speaks, his message is much the same as it was the eight years he was in the state Legislature.
"We need to get people back to work," he said.
Kilmer said business owners he has talked to say with the orders they're getting they should be hiring new people, but they're sitting on those jobs until Congress stops escalating the nation's financial uncertainty.
Doing that, Kilmer said, will involve reducing the debt, which he said does affect economic growth. It will also mean coming up with permanent tax policy and a real budget instead of continuing to enact temporary measures, such as the temporary budget that motivated the Navy to stop hiring.
And there are ways government can invest to stimulate job growth, Kilmer said. He points to the last things he did in Olympia as a state senator: helping pass a balanced budget, authoring a bill that limited the state's debt and supporting a jobs bill. All three passed easily.
Kilmer said that was possible, because "We did not define success as making the other party look like failures," he said.
The freshman class Kilmer joins in Congress is made up largely with people carrying the same message, because that's what they heard their constituents wanted.
"Their constituents want to focus on getting things done," he said. "That is what citizens should expect from Congress."