Lake County Gazette

Bull Valley businessman and Republican candidate for governor Gary Rabine seems convinced his platform message of rebuilding the state economy is easily taking hold with frustrated voters.

“I’ve seen Illinois go from being the best place to build a business to being one of the worst,” he said at a recent Get Together event hosted by the Antioch Republicans and posted to Facebook. “When we look at our policy for workmen’s compensation, it’s one of the worst three in the country. When we look at taxation today, we have the highest real estate taxes in the country, a terrible thing. In that time from 2007 to today, our property values have gone down. Other states don’t have these problems.”

Rabine said his views are based on his observations and conversations he’s had with leaders all over the country.

“I’m friends with a bunch of governors doing a great job bringing jobs to their states and I look at our state and we’re doing everything we can to push job creators out, to push opportunity, out to push our kids out,” he said. “I can’t tell my kids this is the place you must stay to build your family, to build a business, but I’m going to be able to tell them that. My slogan is paving the way to stay.”

Rabine said many of the state’s issues are rooted in its crippling property tax rates, which, along with other policies, have led to many fleeing the state in droves.

“We’re not serving our families in Illinois anymore,” he said. “If we were, we wouldn’t be passing some of these policing laws. We’re letting unions control everything and that’s got to stop.”

Rabine argues in some ways Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been the state’s worst enemy, especially when it comes to matters like his COVID-related shutdown. He said he’s convinced it’s more than mere coincidence that the states where the shutdowns were most stringently imposed also had the most violence.

Rabine has vowed that under his direction Illinois will be different by returning to the way things once were.

“Job creation, crushing property taxes by 50% or more by 2024 and servicing the family like we haven’t done in a long time, that’s what we’re about,” he said. “We do those things and we’ll be paving the way to stay.”