“I keep hearing stories about a potential second recession—we aren’t completely out of the woods—but I would really like them to come up with sound ways to stop inflating the dollar. It’s important to me because I don’t want to see a financial Armageddon in my lifetime.”
(Cerwin Haynes of Syracuse, 36, operates a call center from his home, Democrat)
“Sometimes, it seems education is so rushed with youth, that they go from grade to grade or subject to subject, and they’re not capturing everything. When they go into an older age and get to high school, they fall through the cracks. They get discouraged, quitting school.”
(Mary Shick of Syracuse, 51, program director at Southwest Community Center, unaffiliated with a political party)
“They’re going to bankrupt the country. What could be worse? You don’t spend it; you don’t have to. That’s the trick…Get us back in fiscal order!”
(Ralph Brown of Manlius, 87, retired general manager of engineering for consumer electronics at General Electric, Republican)
“I have four kids….We live in a two-bedroom, and it’s through Syracuse Housing authority—the government! So you have two governments. You got public assistance, which is New York State, and then you got the federal government, the Syracuse Housing Authority. They don’t care how you live: ‘Give me my rent.’”
(Fenton Handford of Syracuse, 48, unemployed former McDonald’s shift manager, Democrat)
“Let Syria worry about Syria…We have kids who don’t know where they’re going to be sleeping tonight…We have all of this going on, and we’re worrying about the next country and how can we protect them, but our own country is falling by the wayside…Let’s lead by example instead of intervening.”
(Jaqueisha Whitaker of Syracuse, 22, personal care assistant at All Metro Healthcare, Democrat)
(Maria Catanzarite is a graduate student in broadcast and digital journalism.)
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