Illinois lawmakers in Springfield are beginning this new year with the same old problem: A lack of a state budget. The stopgap budget that lawmakers were able to cobble together last summer expired with the beginning of 2017. So now, the fight over how to pay the state’s bills - and whether those decisions will include Governor Bruce Rauner’s other legislative priorities, still remains to be seen. Here to take Morning Shift listeners through the ins and outs of the budget battle and talk about where the state might - or might not - go from here are the Chicago Tribune’s Rick Pearson and newly minted WTTW reporter Amanda Vinicky, formerly statehouse bureau chief at Illinois Public Radio.