North Cook News

Will County Republican Central Committee Chair George Pearson says that Gov. J.B. Pritzker's acting like a dictator is destroying thousands of Illinois businesses, something the state's economy – and taxpayers – can ill afford.

“As long as we continue having a dictator in the governor's mansion and weak politicians in the General Assembly on both sides of the aisle, we'll continue to lose businesses and economic development here in Illinois,” Pearson told the Will County Gazette. “Every resident should be fearful of that because that means your property taxes will go up and soon you will not be able to afford to live in Illinois. If Democrats are truly concerned about clean air and clean water, who's going to help pay for it to keep these systems running if all the businesses leave town and no one has a job?”

Pearson made the comments in response to a Yelp study, which found Illinois is among the top five states with the highest number of business closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As businesses have been leaving the state in alarming numbers the past several years, citing high taxes and a less-than-business-friendly state government, the coronavirus and resulting shutdown could not have come at a worse time for the state's economy.

Will County Republican Central Committee Chair George Pearson | File photo

About 2,800 businesses have permanently shuttered and 2,300 more have closed temporarily as the result of the pandemic. Other states in the top five include California, Texas, New York and Florida.

“Some of our businesses had started to see some light and hope but then the governor turned around and reissued his order last week and it just sucked all the life out of these businesses again,” Pearson said, adding that he estimates up to 20% of Will County businesses likely will remain closed. “When you’ve got corroborating politicians ‘going along to get along’ that are enforcing the governor's rules in this town, how can anyone do business?”

Yelp’s quarterly report further found that 5,100 Illinois-based businesses listed on the review-based website have either temporarily closed or will permanently shutter due to COVID-19 governmental shutdown orders.

“None of this medically makes sense,” Pearson said. “This is all a control tactic, point blank, plain and simple. Period. I’m tired of people not being educated on what's going on and not paying attention to the virus from a medical standpoint. If Gov. Pritzker can walk arm and arm with protesters out there, wearing a mask or not, and if the virus is in the air, these masks are with it.”

About 4,400 of 5,100 of the endangered businesses were listed as Chicago-based, and the Illinois Policy Institute determined the state could potentially lose 94,200 service-sector jobs permanently if a surge in coronavirus cases leads to renewed governmental closure orders.

As of Aug. 14, 202,691 coronavirus cases and 7,721 fatalities were reported overall in Illinois, according to the Illinois Department of Health.