The day Illinois' elected officials thought would never come — the day of reckoning — has arrived with a vengeance.

Those not directly affected by the state's deadbeat status may have had a vague idea of the hardship caused by Illinois' failure to pay its bills. But a recent series by the Associated Press and member newspapers across the state laid out the damage chapter and verse.

What a sad state of affairs has enveloped this beleaguered state. Most disturbing is that this financial mess results mostly from the failure of the state's political leaders over a 10-year period to address financial issues in a responsible manner.

Our elected officials — Democrats and Republicans — routinely spent money the state didn't have for new programs while skipping mandatory payments to the state's pension systems.

All the while, they ignored repeated warnings that the consequences of their irresponsibility would be catastrophic. Now the consequences of that long-running financial bender are inescapable.

The Great Recession and a lagging recovery certainly exacerbated the damage done to the state's financial standing. But only a handful of states — including California and New York — even approach the depths of Illinois' financial depravity.

Illinois now finds itself in the curious position of having dramatically raised personal and corporate income taxes, purportedly to pay outstanding bills, but still unable to pay its roughly $5 billion debt.

Why is that? Money pouring into state coffers as a consequence of the state tax increases is going to the state's woefully underfunded public pensions systems.

So despite the pain caused by taxing its citizens ever more, the pain caused by unpaid bills continues unabated.

And it hurts real people in a variety of different ways, whether it pushes human service organizations to the brink of collapse, threatens to put state prisons in the position of not having enough food to feed hungry inmates, indirectly causes university tuition to skyrocket or stops business owners from hiring because they can't get paid.

The frustration and anger are palpable.

"I can be angry. I can be sad. I can be so mad that I cry. I have thrown things across the room," said Leigh Ann Stevens, executive director of the DuPage Center for Independent Living about the state non-payment of bills that has forced her to eliminate staff, cut back hours and reduce salaries.

But those reactions are also pointless.

"We've become accustomed to it. Being angry is not going to change it," said Susan Young, who runs Rockford Map Publishers.

Unfortunately, Young is right. It will do no good to become angry. Illinois is now so broke that the end is not in sight. Even when a real economic recovery comes, Illinois will still trail its rival states because it's allowed itself to sink to such an embarrassingly low level.

How did it come to this? Recessions and recoveries come and go, but through it all there has been one constant — Illinois' sorry, corrupt political culture that encourages short-term thinking, back-scratching deal making, halfway measures, a routine insistence on putting politics before policy and outright corruption that allows political insiders to gorge from the public trough at taxpayer expense.

What's the solution? There's no quick, easy fix. But voters have to resolve to elect legislators and governors who are serious about the state living within its means. Without a strong hand on public finance, Illinois will never restore itself to real stability. Chaos will always be not just on the doorstep, but in the parlor.