The Royal Gazette hit the streets of Hamilton yesterday to gauge how voters felt about Premier Paula Cox’s new Budget.Many who spoke to this newspaper complimented Ms Cox on rolling back her two percent payroll tax hike from the year before.Coral Dakin told us: “I run a small business, and I suspect the Budget didn’t go far enough in terms of really helping the economy. Of course, everyone was expecting a horrendous one, which it wasn’t. Was it a fair Budget for small businesses? I think this time next year we’ll know for real how effective it was.”Another business head, Antonello Fadda, also said he’d expected worse: “The Premier has put some money back in regular people’s pockets by taking the payroll tax back down. For me, I run restaurants, and when she raised the payroll tax I had to get rid of some people. That’s three people out of work. I think in terms of solving problems, this hasn’t solved everything, but she did good for what she had.”A 36-year-old student said: “It wouldn’t be wise to give my name, but I’m studying to be an accountant. I feel they were really picking on the consultants in this Budget, which may not have been completely fair.“This Budget is for 2011 to 2012, and we don’t have accurate information about the future. It’s just a best guess. When you consider that the majority of the world’s governments are in substantial debt, I think Bermuda isn’t doing too badly. We still get left with a big debt, which as Bob Richards said, will probably get passed on to our grandchildren, but at least with this Budget we appear to have capped the leak. For next year the Premier has promised to bring the debt down further. The interest we’re paying on our debt is astronomical, so we need to continue.”He added: “I noticed that the Ministry of Finance got a raise in this Budget. I’d like to know more about what that’s for.”Senior citizen Joan Wade said she was unimpressed.“It didn’t do anything for seniors. There was nothing about them in the Budget, and I had expected to see something. I’m living from pension to pension and even that isn’t enough,” she said.Sean Sexsmith, who works in financial services, called it a fair Budget: “Times are tough. Everybody has had to cut back, and I was glad to see Government cutting back on its expenses. And everyone makes a buck with the payroll tax going back, which I think is great.”Expatriate workers notably declined to comment, with one woman telling us: “I’m a foreign worker, so I don’t get to have an opinion in Bermuda.”Maintenance worker Pete Wilson said: “When I see politicians cutting their own salaries I’ll call it fair. Our politicians are being grossly overpaid for doing nothing, creating debt and not being accessible.”Shanderlie Tucker, who described herself as “an ordinary young Bermudian” admitted she hadn’t read much about the Budget.She said: “It’s good to see we get a little back on payroll, but no, I didn’t see much in the Budget. Everything sucks; rent’s up, pay is down, we have people killing each other and everyone’s struggling.”A number of Bermudians who appeared to be in their 20s seemed unaware that there had been a Budget.One asked: “What Budget is that?”A 22-year-old mother replied: “I’m too busy looking after my baby to worry with politics.”Many people said they couldn’t comment until they had read the Budget thoroughly.A Warwick housewife who gave her first name as Jabbar said there needed to be more austerity measures: “I thought [Ms Cox] was prudent, given that a lot of people are unemployed, but she could have cut much more from the Government sector MPs’ salaries and travel, for example. I don’t understand why we don’t have more conferences via video link. It was also very sad to see education cuts. In times like these we need to pump money into that.”She said she was happy to see that there were “no new ferries for this year, and that the music festival is going”.The woman added: “If they’re not too careful, the PGA golf could turn into an equal waste of money.”A housewife from Devonshire said: “The payroll tax is a big help, because that helps employers get people back into work. But time will tell if it’s been a fair Budget. I want to see them making more cuts on these consultants.”