Quincy Reporter

Quincy conservative activist Mecki Kosin blames the state's Democratic governor for the dwindling economy.

"What we're seeing is the byproduct of having a tyrannical governor who thinks it's alright to shut down the entire state with the snap of a finger," Kosin told the Quincy Reporter. "When you tell people, they can't work and that a lot of our small businesses are not essential operations, this is what you get. It's not just the businesses, but all their workers that are impacted and put out of [the] workforce by his bad policies."

The Illinois Policy Institute reported the state shed its most jobs in history in 2020 at approximately 423,000 or roughly 7% of the workforce. While many of the losses were spread across the  metropolitan areas, it was more pronounced in Chicago, where unemployment numbers more than tripled over a yearlong period ending in December 2020 to 8.7%

"A lot of people had started to do well before COVID hit and gave the governor a license to enact all his bad policies," Kosin said. "He did all this damage with the way he's handled the pandemic. Tyranny oppresses and suppresses everything and that's what we're experiencing here in Illinois."

Kosin said she sees only one way for the state to rescue itself and return to some semblance of financial stability.

"Small business owners have got to stop listening to the governor and taking him at his word," she added. "We've got to get back to running our businesses the way we feel we need to. I think more people are starting to condition themselves to think that way because they realize it's the only way they have any chance of surviving."