Astrange thing happened in Springfield, Ill., last week: The governor proposed a state budget, and legislators began reviewing it. More bizarre still, it looks certain the General Assembly this spring will approve either that budget or some other spending plan, the governor will sign it, and state employees will go about their work for the public.

A budgetary process most states would see as normal isn’t something Illinoisans are used to. The state was fiscally rudderless for more than two of Republican former Gov. Bruce Rauner’s four years, with no budget at all due to impasses between him and the Democrat-controlled Legislature. State services were interrupted; bills went unpaid; the state’s credit rating dropped.

Last week’s debut budget speech from newly installed Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker contained some things to praise and some to question. But the overall sense of a government finally putting away the knives and getting back to work was entirely encouraging.

Pritzker still has his work cut out for him, even with a friendly Legislature. The state faces a $3.2 billion structural deficit and $15 billion in overdue bills. At the root of it all is Illinois’ worst-in-the-nation unfunded pension liability of more than $133 billion.

Most of the problems far preceded Rauner’s arrival, though his rocky tenure worsened an already-bad situation. His insistence on using the budget process to push Republican agenda items not directly related to budgeting was at the core of the budget shutdowns.

Pritzker made clear last week he’ll stick to the subject at hand: “Budgeting will not be done anymore by taking the state hostage, or by court orders, consent decrees and continuing appropriations but instead by debate and compromise and a return to regular order.” Amen.

He called for a future graduated income tax to replace the state’s flat-rate system, putting a heavier load on the wealthy. Unfortunately, as with too many of his predecessors, his only immediate answer to the pension crisis was to kick the can down the road. Hopefully, that won’t be his last word on it.

Meanwhile, he called for beating the bushes for revenue with a raft of new user fees and taxes, on items including cigarettes, video gaming and plastic bags. He called for the legalization of recreational marijuana and sports betting, so those, too, could be taxed. He wants a tax on insurance companies to offset Medicaid costs. He wants an amnesty program to encourage tax scofflaws to catch up on what they owe.

In the coming months, these proposals will prompt their own showdowns, as affected business groups and special interests try to prevent their oxen from being gored. That’s how it works in normal state governments. It won’t be pretty, but presumably it won’t be the all-encompassing paralysis of the last four years.