Legislator pay raise illustrates Illinois Democrats' contempt for taxpayers

In the dead of night on Memorial Day weekend, Illinois Democrats rammed through the House and Senate a state budget so wildly irresponsible it's hard to put into words. The budget spends $2 billion more than last year and $11 billion more than projected revenue. That $11 billion budget hole is filled with $5 billion in new debt and a $6 billion dollar dream of a federal government bailout.

While those figures are staggering and infuriating, nothing shows the contempt Illinois Democrats have for Illinois taxpayers quite like the pay raise they carved out for lawmakers in the budget.

Yes, you read that right. While millions of Illinoisans are out of work, Illinois Democrats refused to deny themselves and other legislators an $1,800 pay raise - the second one in less than 12 months.

It's not hyperbole to say Illinois Democrats are showing complete contempt for voters on this issue. Contempt is the feeling that a person has for another when he believes that person is beneath consideration and can simply be disregarded. Illinois Democrats must believe voters can just be ignored or we're so ignorant that we will believe their verifiable mistruths.

The Democrat-controlled General Assembly passed a law in 2014 that said increases to lawmaker salaries (COLA adjustments) are automatic and must be specifically prohibited for a given year for the payments to stop. That is, lawmakers get automatic pay raises unless they specifically eliminate them in budget implementation bills. Democrats happily accepted their pay raise last year. They admitted it. They said they needed it. Deserved it, even.

Now, during these trying times, Democrats have done the same thing. Except this time, they aren't so proud of it and have taken to lying about it.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in his post-budget passage press briefing, " ... no, they managed to get that out of it and took care of it either in the BIMP (budget implementation) or the appropriations." Wrong.

Other Democrats have said they won't receive a pay increase because they didn't specifically appropriate money for it in the budget and the comptroller has agreed to not to pay it. What the Democrats know - and what they assume voters are too stupid to figure out - is that past court rulings make clear that the comptroller is legally forced to pay the increase without specific language to the contrary.

Therefore, the Democrats can act like they're fighting the pay raise now when voters are paying attention, but they will quietly accept it months from now when everyone has lost interest.

Sen. Andy Manar has taken a lead on this particular lie, penning a 275-word social media post trying to get his constituents to not believe their lying eyes. C'mon, Senator.

The fact remains, Illinois Democrats chose not to do the one thing they could have to definitively reject their automatic salary increase. All they had to do was insert one line into the budget implementation bill that says no to a pay raise. It's what they did from 2015 to 2018, but they chose not to do that this year.

Instead, Illinois Democrats specifically chose to increase their pay, and now they are choosing to lie to the public about it. No amount of self-righteous claims to the contrary will change that. No amount of parliamentary smoke and mirrors will obscure the contempt Illinois Democrats have for voters who just want a government that works for them, not for the political class.

• Tim Schneider, of Bartlett, is the chairman of the Illinois Republican Party.