Please don’t believe anyone who comes along and says there are simple solutions. I believe I understand those issues as well as anyone and will do my best to work towards the best, common sense solutions that help the people I represent, our state and our country. But the one thing I know for sure is that nobody understands this district as well as I do, and nobody will work as hard to represent it.

While I was out knocking on doors over the weekend, I heard a great personal story from a couple I met in NE Tacoma. Both worked in the technology field and had been out of work for over a year. The wife took advantage of a federal program that helped her pay for vocational retraining; she took classes and became qualified to work in medical billing. She got a job and is enjoying her new career. And just this week her husband got hired back at his old company. Both said that they never could have made it – they would have lost their house and she never would have been able to have the time to get retrained – if not for the extended unemployment they received.