Last July, Republican candidate for governor Darren Bailey took to Facebook to denounce both the extension of federally-enhanced state jobless benefits and Democratic President Joe Biden’s visit to Crystal Lake to promote his coronavirus relief agenda.
“Here’s the dangerous slope that we are on in America,” the state senator and farmer from downstate Xenia said, while discussing Biden’s visit. “That’s exactly what we heard: Free stuff. Handouts. Don’t worry about it, the government’s going to take care of you.”
“Friends,” he said, “that’s socialism.”
But only months before, on Feb. 26, Bailey received the latest of a series of payments from the federal government’s coronavirus business relief Paycheck Protection Program under the Small Business Administration — $231,475 to support 11 jobs at the family farm he owns with his sons.
Less than a month later, on March 22, Bailey reported a personal loan of $150,000 to his campaign for governor, listing “Self-Employed (Bailey Family Farms)” as his employer on the required state campaign finance disclosure form. […]
All told, records compiled in a database produced by investigative news agency ProPublica show Bailey’s family farm and two other entities he owns, Bailey Family Freight and the Virtue House Ministries Christian school run by his wife, received $569,045 in so-called PPP loans from April 2020 to February 2021.
Bailey’s campaign says they abided by all the rules.
