SINCE he took over as governor of Illinois at the start of the year, Bruce Rauner, who has always been slender, has shed about 20 pounds (nine kilos). The stress of running one of America’s most dysfunctional and indebted states is starting to show. The Republican governor is fighting an epic battle with the Democratic supermajority in both chambers of the statehouse. At stake is Illinois’s budget: the Midwestern state has been operating without a proper one since the beginning of July when Mr Rauner vetoed the unbalanced budget lawmakers presented to him.

So entrenched is the conflict between the legislature and the former businessman, who has never before held political office, that it might drag into 2016. The main bone of contention is Mr Rauner’s pro-business, anti-union, agenda, which he wants the statehouse to pass before he approves the tax increases and expenditure cuts needed to achieve a balanced budget. The governor’s pet reforms are curbing the cost for businesses of workers’ compensation, an insurance policy against workplace injury, changes to tort law and restrictions of collective-bargaining rights of public-sector employees. Mark Madigan, the speaker of the House, and John Cullerton, the president of the Senate, the two heavyweights of the state legislature, say that the governor’s agenda is too radical and that they would need to abandon their core beliefs to give in to his demands.

Illinois’s public sector is still mostly functioning. A patchwork of court orders and state laws is ensuring that around 90% of state spending is disbursed. State employees are receiving their salaries and pensions, and recipients of Medicaid, a government health-scheme for the poor, are getting coverage. The state’s elementary and high schools are open. Even Illinois’s gargantuan debt is being serviced.

Yet state universities have not received any funding from the state since July, which is especially tricky for those that do not have the backing of wealthy foundations or a big network of graduates. Funds have been blocked for almost all social-assistance programmes for children, the poor, the elderly, the disabled, addicts and victims of domestic abuse. The agencies running the programmes are forced to reduce their services, sack employees, deplete their cash reserves or take on debt. Some have simply shut their doors.

“This has never happened before, not like this,” says Tom Dart, the sheriff of Cook County. The sheriff is enraged because as boss of the biggest jail in America he sees how the absence of a budget hits the poor and vulnerable who rely most on state services hardest. After release from jail those with mental illnesses are not getting the treatment and medication they need; those with a history of substance abuse are looking in vain for support; and those without a home have fewer places where they can ask for help. “Our social services were meagre to start with,” says Mr Dart. “Now there is even less.”

A fishy friendship

Chicago’s state-school children are caught up in the tussle. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is counting on $480m from the state. Without the cash the CPS will need to lay off thousands of teachers as early as January. Fearing another teachers’ strike, Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, urged Mr Rauner “to stop name-calling and just do your job”. Mr Rauner retorted that Mr Emanuel was hiding his support for his pro-business reforms. Mr Emanuel needs $800m from the state for the CPS and Chicago’s public transport. Mr Rauner wants Mr Emanuel’s help in getting Democratic lawmakers to agree to his reforms. Chicago folklore has it that Mr Emanuel once sent a dead fish to a political operative; the governor has promised to give the mayor the same treatment. The two men, who have been friends for over a decade, are in a fight which only one can win.

In cold financial terms the lack of a budget hurts Illinois. Mainly due to the expiration of a temporary increase in the income-tax rate at the start of the year, the state is spending more than it is taking in. The state comptroller has warned that by the end of the year Illinois would be saddled with $8.5 billion in unpaid bills and that the state would need to delay a payment into the state pension system this month (see chart). On October 19th Fitch, a credit-ratings agency, downgraded Illinois’s rating on $27 billion in outstanding bonds to three notches above junk, citing the budget battle, the state’s high debt and its huge pension liabilities. Moody’s, another ratings agency, followed suit a few days later, with the sixth downgrade in five years.