Michigander Posts ‘All Business is Essential’ Billboards Around State

In an act of what he calls “economic disobedience,” Erik Kiilunen is posting “All Business is Essential” billboards around Michigan to protest Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s shutdown orders.

Billboards will be appearing in Grand Rapids, Detroit, and Howell, and Kiilunen said it’s only the beginning.

“All business is essential, and the government, and state governors, do not have the legal authority to pick and choose who has the right to work and feed their families, and who doesn’t,” he said.

Kiilunen appeared on The Kyle Olson Show and said, “What I want to do with this campaign is 1. Eliminate fear, 2. Educate the public, and 3. Restart the economy.”

He said he doesn’t fear contracting the coronavirus after looking at the data, but something he does fear is “doing this another 2-3 months, taking $5-6 billion out of the state’s economy and saying, ‘okay, now what do we do with 3-4 million unemployed people?'”

Kiilunen said when the state shutdown, his manufacturing business “lost $600,000 overnight. I had a 10-man contracting company, I laid everybody off. There was just nothing to do.”

He said as the lockdown dragged on, “You cannot just stop and start a business. It just doesn’t work that way.”

So he decided to launch the effort posting billboards around the state with the “All Business is Essential” message.

“When your government’s busy throwing rocks at each other and doing nothing productive for the country, it’s up to us to stand up and straighten it out,” he said.

“Michigan’s on life support and if we don’t fix it now, we’re going to have a problem of colossal proportions coming down the pike,” he told The Kyle Olson Show.

Kiilunen started a GoFundMe to help finance his efforts and has raised over $31,000 so far.

“If we all just get up and go to work, there’s nothing they can do to us,” he said.

Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. He is also host of “The Kyle Olson Show,” syndicated on Michigan radio stations on Saturdays. Follow him on Twitter and like him on Facebook.