East Central Reporter

Diane Benjamin has heard enough from Rep. Bill Mitchell (R-Forsyth) -- even if she's rarely heard from him.

“He is my rep, but I never hear anything from him until right before election time,” Benjamin told the East Central Reporter recently. "But I never thought he was that kind of Republican.”

Mitchell was one of 15 Republicans to vote with Democrats to override Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto and pass a state budget that includes a 32 percent state income tax increase.

Benjamin, an Ellsworth resident, took to her blog to rail against those GOP lawmakers who helped push personal income tax rates to 4.95 percent from 3.75 percent and corporate income tax rates to 7 percent from 5.25 percent

“This state is so mismanaged, and this will do nothing to change that,” she said. “Passing a budget like that, with no reforms, feels like being stabbed in the back. If the GOP stayed together, they had all cards.”

Benjamin lamented that she feels like her time in Illinois is at an end after the latest legislative moves, plus the state's mounting pension liability.

“I tell anyone who has the opportunity to move away to do it now,” she said. “I’ve been trying to get my husband to do it. He has five years before retiring, and I just hope our home still has some value by then. When my son graduated college, I told him not to take a job in Illinois. The pensions people are collecting here are insane.”

Benjamin also laments the way the new spending bill doesn’t cover any of the $15 billion Illinois carries in unpaid bills.

“Politicians talk about how the state faced the prospect of having its credit rating lowered if no new budget was passed, but Illinois is already at junk levels,” she said.