By PETER O’CAIN | Bremerton Patriot
BREMERTON — There’s no easy fix to the economy, but U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer believes helping small businesses grow is key.
Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, spoke at a Bremerton Chamber of Commerce member luncheon at the Baymont Inn and Suites Feb. 17.
Kilmer, who previously worked for financial consulting firm McKinsey and Co., addressed a multitude of ways to fix the budget, both locally and nationally.
“Anyone who tells you there’s a silver bullet to get this economy moving is not being straight with you,” Kilmer said. “I don’t think it’s a silver bullet, I think it’s more like a silver buckshot.”
Helping small businesses is crucial, he said, calling them “our star running back.”
“They’re Marshawn Lynch, who we should have given the ball to at the end of the Super Bowl,” Kilmer said.
“I think the role of your federal government at the very least is to get the heck out of the way of our star running back but ideally to do some blocking and call some plays for our star running back.”
Kilmer also warned that sequestration is on the horizon if Congress can’t pass a budget.
“Under current law, you will see a return to sequestration next year if Congress fails to take action and replace it,” Kilmer said. “The impacts — particularly in an area like ours where the Navy is our largest employer — are significant.”
Kilmer said he believes sequestration is Latin for “stupid.”
“We’ve got to see a Congress that gets back to actually passing regular budgets, passing regular spending bills and avoiding this sort of governance from crisis to crisis where you’re sort of doing things last minute,” Kilmer said.
Kilmer is a co-sponsor of a bill called No Budget, No Pay, which stipulates that Congress doesn’t get paid if they can’t pass a budget.
“I think it’s awesome,” said chamber member Norm Johnson. “I don’t really side Democratic but I really liked a lot of the views he has.”
“When we talk about our economy, some of that is keeping the jobs we have and the military’s presence here is significant,” Kilmer said.
High on Kilmer’s list of factors to help fix the economy was education, and he specifically mentioned STEM (Science, Technology and Math).
“Not every job down the road is gonna require STEM but more and more jobs will,” Kilmer said. “Some of the high growth (job) fields are in the STEM arena.”
He said he’s involved with the America Competes Act, which would help provide STEM opportunities to more students as well as focus on national research policy.
“It’s exciting to hear that it’s on the forefront of his agenda,” said Aaron Leavell, superintendent of Bremerton School District. “It’s good to hear he’s following through on commitments he ran on.”
Kilmer addressed the area’s infrastructure, as well.
“But it turns out it’s a really big deal,” Kilmer said, citing the collapse of a bridge in Mount Vernon in 2013. “Our capacity to get goods to market is a very big deal.”
The Federal Highway Trust Fund will go into the red next June if Congress does nothing, which would be “very, very bad news” for Bremerton if the local government lost federal support, Kilmer said.
