Are you sick of reading about the incomplete state budget yet? Because we’re sick of writing about it. But the hits just keep coming.

On Wednesday, in a move that should surprise absolutely no one, the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s followed through on a months-old warning and knocked Pennsylvania’s credit down a notch, taking its bond rating down from AA-minus to A-plus.

In its announcement S&P pointed to a “misalignment” of state revenues and expenditures in 2016-17 that resulted in a $1.54 billion deficit last year. The ratings company also noted that the state still has no revenue package to pay for its $32 billion budget for 2017-18, and that last week the state missed $1.7 billion in payments to Medicaid and school districts.

The downgrade means that Pennsylvania’s credit is now viewed as the third-worst in the nation — as far as S&P is concerned, only Illinois (which blew its own budget deadline this summer) and New Jersey (facing a mountain of unfunded pension obligations) should viewed more unfavorably by investors.

And that means higher borrowing costs for Pennsylvania — costs that could reach into tens of millions of dollars this year alone, according to The Associated Press.

That means more pressure on the commonwealth’s already-strained budget — which in turn means more pressure on an already-ineffective budget process, and likely less money for government and social services, public schools and institutions of higher learning, health care — the list goes on.

Following the downgrade Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, and Republican leaders in the General Assembly traded insults through the media.

Wolf, in a statement, called on Republican legislators, who control both the state House and Senate, to come to an agreement on a revenue package, and warned that he would take “further steps to manage this situation” if talks hadn’t progressed by next week.

Republican leaders in the House, in their own statement, lambasted Wolf, state Treasurer Joe Tortsella and Auditor General Eugene DePasquale (both Democrats) for refusing to approve internal loans to the state’s general fund, which resulted in last week’s missed payments.

“When those in charge of the checkbook ... very publicly refuse to pay bills, even as bank accounts hold billions, of course our credit rating will take a hit,” House leaders wrote in a joint statement.

Let’s be clear: no one is blameless when it comes to this entirely avoidable downgrade. But it is Republican legislators who bear the brunt of responsibility.

Their affinity for budget gimmicks, borrowing and one-time sources of revenue has helped siphon off Pennsylvania’s reserves and create and exacerbate budget imbalances. Their aversion to making any difficult fiscal decisions at all — whether those decisions would ultimately reduce services and programs or increase taxes — is as insulting as it is embarrassing. And their willingness to lash out politically and treat S&P’s downgrade as a foregone conclusion is laughably tone-deaf.

This downgrade wasn’t unavoidable, and it isn’t the result of the state’s independently-elected fiscal officers being unwilling to approve yet another ill-advised internal loan.

It’s the result of ineffective budgeting and cowardly politicking in the General Assembly. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, at this point that definitely has become a foregone conclusion.