25th district hopefuls square off twice
Syracuse Post-Standard
Mike McAndrew
October 7th, 2008
Candidates debate education, Social Security in separate forums
The three 25th Congressional District candidates proved Monday night they could be in two places at once.
A crowd of about 80 people quizzed Republican Dale Sweetland, Democrat Dan Maffei and Green Populist Howie Hawkins about their education views at a 7 p.m. forum at Henninger High School.
At the same time, the three were debating Social Security and other issues on TV screens across Central New York as News10Now broadcast the candidates' first televised debate - an event taped hours earlier.
But being in two dimensions at once might be an easier trick than securing the federal dollars needed to improve Central New York's public schools.
The federal government provides less than 2 percent of the Syracuse city school district's operating budget.
At Henninger, Hawkins drew the biggest applause when he explained what he would do to improve education for students with disabilities.
"It will be a nice day when the schools get the money they need and the military has to hold a bake sale," Hawkins said.
Cutting the military budget would also free up dollars needed to fully fund the Head Start program for preschool children, Hawkins said.
Maffei agreed education should be much higher on the nation's priority list. "I support defense cuts in some cases because that would help that," he said.
But he predicted Congress won't cut defense spending and increase taxes on the richest Americans fast enough to rescue Syracuse's schools.
Asked about funding for pre-K programs, Sweetland warned that Congress is going to have to make tough spending decisions because of the nation's economic crisis.
"I will tell you that, in my mind, education is at the top of the list," Sweetland said. "But there will be difficult choices."
On the 6-year-old federal "No Child Left Behind" law, Hawkins said he favors repealing it because local educators know better than Washington bureaucrats how to teach pupils in their classes. Maffei said he would turn the law "upside down" because it is not funded adequately and it takes control away from local educators. Sweetland said he would "fix it, make it work right and fund it" instead of repealing it.
Earlier in the day, the candidates sparred for 54 minutes about Social Security, health care and the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street investment banks at the Time Warner studio in DeWitt.
All three candidates vowed to stop the government's raiding of the nation's Social Security funds to pay for other government expenses and said they would oppose proposals to privatize Social Security benefits by letting citizens invest them in individual accounts.
Hawkins was the only candidate who said he would support a single-payer universal health insurance system run by the government for all Americans. Maffei was the only one supporting requiring employers to automatically enroll their employees in 401(k) or other retirement accounts.
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