Illinoisans can be forgiven for having a sense of deja vu. The six-month spending plan passed by the General Assembly at the end of June expired at midnight Saturday.

As of now, state lawmakers aren’t due to return to Springfield until Jan. 9 for what would be a very abbreviated lame-duck session where outgoing lawmakers could still vote on a new state spending plan and elements of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s pro-business “turnaround agenda” if they chose.

A new year begins today, and with it the optimist has a sense of renewal that the next 365 days will be filled with only good tidings and new beginnings.

That might be the attitude in most places, but for us in Illinois, the pessimist emerges just shortly after the new year rings in at midnight. Because here, 2017 signals the beginning of once again having no spending plan to guide the state’s operations, as the stopgap budget that has provided funding for the past six months expired Dec. 31.

Illinois has now gone without a budget for 18 months. And as of Jan. 1, the spending authority provided by a short-term stopgap plan expired, meaning the state can no longer pay for new costs incurred by our colleges and universities, human service groups and businesses providing goods and services to veterans homes, correctional facilities and other institutions.

Illinois has been going down the wrong path for far too many years. Time and again, leaders have failed to make spending reductions and the structural changes necessary to end decades of budget deficits. Instead they have chosen politically expedient quick fixes that have made things worse in the long run. As a result, today our state has about $11 billion in unpaid bills, a $130 billion unfunded pension liability and a shrinking population base. In fact, last year Illinois lost more residents than any other state – nearly 40,000 people.

Springfield’s shelter for domestic-violence victims could begin cutting staff and services as early as late January because of a lack of state funding, while the Helping Hands homeless shelter’s state funding won’t run out for at least six months.

That range of difficulties isn’t surprising, given the variety of state and federal funding streams used by not-for-profit organizations and the way the state’s stopgap spending plan was structured, according to Dan Lesser, coordinator for the Responsible Budget Coalition.

Illinois lost more residents than any other state in the most recent population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The loss of an estimated 37,508 people between July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016, is a big concern in its own right. It will be an even bigger deal when the state loses one seat in Congress during the next national reapportionment. One political analyst thinks the state might even lose two seats.

Illinois is poised to re-enter a budgetary limbo on Sunday with the expiration of temporary spending authority for the state’s cash-strapped universities and fraying human services network.

Political feuding between Republican Governor Bruce Rauner and Democrats who control the state legislature has left the nation’s fifth-largest state without a full-year operating budget for 18 months.

A major business story got overlooked in the holiday hubbub—and it’s a doozy: Illinois’ biggest economic development weapon is being decommissioned.

As Crain’s political columnist Greg Hinz reported Dec. 19, the state’s Edge tax credit program expires Dec. 31, barring a last-minute legislative rescue that, as of this writing, seems unlikely.

The approach of Jan. 1, 2017 means the start of nearly 200 new laws in Illinois, ranging from criminal justice reform to health care, safety, pensions and protections for workers.

To get residents up to speed on laws they deem most important, both state Senate Democrats and Republicans released their picks for the top new laws for 2017.

Nearly 200 new Illinois laws will take effect in the new year, including first-in-the nation rules requiring hairstylists to undergo training to help domestic violence victims and others making it easier for juvenile offenders to get a fresh start.

The 192 laws taking effect Jan. 1 cover many topics, including health, law enforcement and youth. There’s even one for state history buffs.