Prairie State Wire

"People Who Play by the Rules" (PBR) Political Action Committee (PAC) President Dan Proft is going after Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) for his comments about his opponent allegedly using federal grants to help fund his campaign.

"Will Pritzker be demanding the rest of Illinois' hardworking farmers return their federal grants over the years as well, or is he implying that Illinois farmers are welfare parasites?" Proft told Prairie State Wire.

The statement was issued to help clarify where the payments originated to fund State Sen. Darren Bailey's (R-Louisville) gubernatorial campaign. Proft says that it could be misleading for Pritzker to suggest that Bailey is using government loans as a piggy bank for his campaign. 

Illinois Sen. Darren Bailey | ILGA.gov

"J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire trust fund child who was born on third and thinks he hit a triple, has some gall to criticize a family farmer like Darren Bailey and every other Illinois business that received PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) funding during the lockdown as compensation for what amounted to a Fifth Amendment taking and as the means to maintain the gainful employment of their workers," Proft told Prairie State Wire.

Pritzker's ad claims that Darren Bailey applied for a PPP loan and received $231,475, which he used to finance his campaign. Small businesses saw dramatic reductions in revenue during COVID-19, so PPP loans were designed to assist them with payroll. PPP loan forgiveness requirements are not mentioned in the advertisement. 

It was required that the borrower maintain employee and compensation levels for eight to 24 weeks following receipt of the loan, prove the loan was used solely for payroll and other business expenses, and prove that 60% of the loan was spent solely on payroll costs, according to FreshBooks. Pritzker claims Bailey didn't use his PPP loan for employee payroll, so Bailey would have to repay it.

Bailey received federal grants over the course of 1995 to 2020, not all at once, according to EWG's Farm Subsidy Database. While the claim that he has received over $2.1 million in subsidies is true, those grants were distributed over a period of years.

According to a Thought Co. report from 2020, Illinois ranked third in the country for the percentage of federal grants it received for agriculture, only behind Texas and Iowa.

Agriculture accounted for about 1% of the federal government's budget in 2021, with $30.8 billion spent on agriculture research and services and $18.8 billion on farm income stabilization, according to USASpending.gov.

The ad in which Pritzker's campaign makes this claim against Bailey can be viewed on YouTube. Debco12, a YouTube user, commented the following: “This ad is so full of B.S., it could fertilize every piece of farm ground in Illinois and still have enough leftover for Wisconsin and Indiana.”