Syracuse University student Veronica Boehm said she knows all too well about the state of the United States economy.
Higher gas and tuition prices made it too expensive for Boehm, a sophomore history major, to bring her car to campus. Now, last week's bankruptcy announcement from investment banking firm Lehman Brothers means she must search for a new student loan lender for the spring.
"It hits more now," Boehm said, describing the effect of the recent economic downturn on the cost of her education.
The collapse of Lehman, along with the simultaneous purchase of investment bank Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, are just two examples of the string of bad news that have humbled the American economy recently. After Lehman's collapse, weaknesses within insurance giant AIG also surfaced.
Earlier this month, the federal government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two of the country's largest mortgage buyers, which were on the verge of bankruptcy. At the same time, the Department of Labor announced the unemployment rate in August had increased to 6.1 percent, its highest level since 2003.
While the price of gasoline has decreased since its July peak above the $4.10 mark for regular, it is still roughly $1.05 higher than a year ago, according to the Department of Energy's Web site.
Reacting to the turmoil on Wall Street, the White House, led by President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, have proposed a sweeping bailout plan that will give the Treasury Department $700 billion to buy bad assets-backed mortgage debt from financial companies. Critics on both ends of the political spectrum have blasted the proposal for its wide scale intervention in the market place.
Some SU students said they have been hit by the current economic climate in ways both large and small:
• Erin Scialabba, a freshman magazine journalism major, said that her family skipped taking a vacation this past summer, and that she is careful about what he spends her money on. She said she's particularly worried about the state of the financial services sector, as her father is a financial advisor for Wachovia, a bank hit by the credit crunch. "We're making a conscious effort not to spend excessively and make only practical purchases," Scialabba said.
• Ashley Torregrossa, a junior psychology major, has made cutbacks in her discretionary spending. "It's just limited going out to eat, spending money on luxury items," she said, adding that her father, who works for a mortgage company, has seen his income go down.
• Zack Smith, a junior advertising major, found difficulty in getting a summer job. "I was looking to work in restaurants to subsidize an internship that I had, and it was really hard to get a foot in the door at restaurants because no one's been going out recently, and the restaurant business has taken a hit," he said. Smith said his father, who owns a carpentry business and does home editions, has seen slow business, because there are fewer people making home improvements.
The magnitude of the bad news has made the state of the economy the most important presidential election issue to voters, according to poll results.
In a recent Newsweek poll conducted from Sept. 10 to Sept. 11, 39 percent of registered voters said the economy and jobs were the most important issues in picking which candidate they will vote for in November, beating out issues such as national security and the War in Iraq.
With such concern about the nation's financial status, attention turns toward what proposals the two major party candidates, Democrat Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain, have for bolstering the economy.
"I think the voters really would like to know what the perspective candidates are going to do about getting the country out of the current economic crisis," said Tom Barkley, an assistant finance professor in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management. "There's a lot of unemployment, a lot of concern about people who are out of a job trying to find new jobs."
Barkley said the most important things the candidates should look at include encouraging more students to enter math and science fields, improving investors' confidence, increasing business productivity, reducing the price of commodities such as oil and strengthening the dollar.
Both McCain and Obama supporters made the case for why they said they think their candidates were better suited to deal with the downturn.
Lisa Daly, central New York coordinator for Syracuse for Obama, said she believes Obama is more in touch with voters' economic concerns than McCain.
"We just can't continue the policies we've had," she said. "They don't work. They reward wealth instead of work."
In particular, Daly mentioned Obama's alternative energy policy and its economic role in weaning the country off of oil.
"Senator Obama recognizes what a central role energy policy plays in economics, specifically I think his commitment to expanding alternative energy and investing in green jobs," she said. "That's the future, and to me that's extremely important, and I think that people recognize in everyday life that's extremely important when you're paying $4 a gallon for gas."
Regarding the Treasury's proposed bailout plan, Obama said it was a "welfare program for Wall Street executives" and laid out changes he would like to see made, including a limit on CEO pay for bailed out companies and a demand there be a federal investment share in the companies that accept aid.
On tax policy, Obama supports a tax credit of $500 per individual and $1,000 per family to offset payroll taxes on the first $8,500 of earnings. He also supports elimination of capital gains taxes for small business, according to his Web site.
Obama proposes a $4,000 refundable tax credit as college financial aid on top of current grants and loans. He also supports a repeal of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 annually and proposes raising the estate tax.
is a member of the 
