America’s Main Street is resilient, but even the best of businesses can’t compete when government pays people to stay home.
From labor shortages to shuttered businesses, coronavirus relief in the form of stimulus payments and increased unemployment benefits has had devastating and unintended consequences in Tennessee.
Here are some of the real stories of lives affected when government “help” hurts.
Why Cindy Sueiro said she closed G’s Pancake House Cindy Sueiro, one of my constituents, shared with me that stimulus payments and increased unemployment benefits have forced her business of nearly 50 years to close.
Ms. Sueiro owned and operated G’s Pancake House in Clarksville, Tennessee. This restaurant has been a staple of our community since Ms. Sueiro’s father, “Mr. G,” opened it in 1972.
Eugene Sueiro fled the Castro regime in the 1950s before joining the Army and opening his restaurant, which served some of the best pancakes in town. Mr. Sueiro told his daughter, Cindy, that he chose Clarksville as the site of his restaurant because of its proximity to Fort Campbell.
He said he wanted a place that felt like home— and for him, the Army was home. In turn, the restaurant gave my family and many of our soldiers at Fort Campbell a taste of home for almost five decades.
Ms. Sueiro told me that her employees began quitting after receiving a second stimulus payment. Eighteen employees dwindled to six. Ms. Sueiro knew the business was in trouble.
“I believe one of the major issues we face as small businesses is the lack of employable workers. They have zero incentive to come to work,” she told me. Ms. Sueiro recalled employees asking her, “Why work? I can make more on unemployment and do nothing.”
