Will County Gazette

Former Congressional District republican candidate Rick Laib worries about what comes next for struggling small businesses across Illinois.

“If businesses can no longer make full rent payments, or any rent payments, they will cease to function as a business,” Laib told the Will County Gazette in the wake of a new survey by small business referral network Alignable that details how the month of December saw 56% of all the state’s bar and restaurant owners unable to pay their full rent as the sting of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s ongoing ban on indoor dining took greater effect.

Nationally, that figure stands at 61%, up 19% from just a month earlier with the harshest part of the winter season still yet to come. In Illinois, the number of restaurants now unable to make full rent payments has already more than doubled since September.

Laib fears things may get worse before they get better as the governor’s growing habit of ruling by executive order when it comes to the virus shows no signs of slowing.

“With no tax dollars provided, we will continue to drive ourselves further and further into bankruptcy as a state,” he said. “To turn this path around would put us in the direction of a financially thriving and financially healthy state. What is unfortunate is the further we head in this direction, the harder it will be to eventually turn around.”

Laib said the governor’s disconnect from the people he is supposed to represent becomes more apparent with each day.

“He is disconnected but believes, ‘we are in this together,’ he said. “We are definitely not in this together. We should definitely be concerned about the direction we are heading in. We have seen faulty reasoning from our governor prior to COVID becoming a household word.”