Pat Steves, Samantha Savage, Chris Hutton (Sara Tracey)
“Hopefully get us out of debt. Change things around with schools and stuff for kids. Definitely for other people that have kids that are struggling. Too many students in one classroom for one teacher. They’re cutting back teachers, where the teachers can’t really teach 20, 30 kids. They need more than one teacher in a classroom or seperate the classes out with these teachers.”
(Pat Steves, 38, of East Syracuse, painter for Crouse Hospital, unaffiliated with a political party)
“The economy is so bad. I have two degrees, and right now I can’t find a job in my field. With these cutbacks, I work in human services, and those are the first jobs to go. I just graduated in 2003. Working with kids again — I did it for eight years and I needed to take a little break. It was the wrong time to take a break because the economy went south and now I can’t find anything out there.”
(Rick Walker, 57, of Syracuse, dishwasher for Varsity Pizza, Republican)
“Something I’ve kind of been more aware of is taxes and where our tax money is going. I’ve been dissatisfied with what I’ve been seeing. I know that the local government is putting a lot of money into a bus station downtown, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. So definitely taxpayers’ money and where it’s being allocated.”
(Jackie Lillis, 23, of Liverpool, genetic research scientist for SRC Inc., registered Democrat)
“I think American tax dollars should go more toward education. I know people that have children. Even the public schools aren’t giving anything. Parents are paying hundreds of dollars for their kids’ first day of school.”
(Samantha Savage, 35, of Westvale, dental assistant, unaffiliated with a political party)
“I agree with what President Obama has been saying in that it seems that many members of Congress are playing a politics game. And not just members of Congress, but also the media are playing ‘who has won the game? Have the Republicans or Democrats won?’ And that, as we’ve seen, is becoming a giant roadblock, because our government is set up in such a way that the two parties have to negotiate and collaborate together.”
(Chris Hutton, 21, of Syracuse, a senior musical theater major at Syracuse University, Democrat)
(Sara Tracey is a senior majoring in newspaper journalism.)
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