For many people, 2016 was the real-world manifestation of Judith Viorst’s iconic 1972 children’s book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.”

If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s pretty simple: an elementary-school-age child (Alexander) suffers through a bad day at home and school, only to be reassured by his mother at bedtime that everyone has bad days and things will get better.

One striking difference between the book and real life: we’re still waiting on someone to promise that this year will be better than the last. Don’t look to Pennsylvania Senate minority leader Jay Costa to fill that role, though.

“This is going to be a difficult year, I think we all know that,” said Costa, D-Forest Hills, of 2017’s prospects.

Costa’s prediction may be on point and honest, but by now it’s old hat. State lawmakers have spent years saying the same thing, over and over again: it’s going to be a tough year, it’s going to be a tight budget, it’s going to be a knock-down-drag-out fight.

It’s time to actually do something about the myriad of problems facing the commonwealth. Let’s list a few:

n A combined, unfunded liability of more than $70 billion for the state’s two public employee pension plans (SERS and PSERS). Left untended, that liability will grow to more than $80 billion by 2018.

n A budget shortfall of $600 million that could grow to $1.7 billion by the start of the new fiscal year, according to the state’s nonpartisan Independent Fiscal Office. Left untended, the shortfall will balloon to $3 billion per year by 2021, the office projects.

n A legislative redistricting process that is politicized and broken, that foments polarization by creating artificially secure voting districts through gerrymandering. It’s the fifth-worst system in the nation, according to an analysis published Dec. 23 by The Electoral Integrity Project, an academic research group based at Harvard and Sydney universities.

n An unemployment rate that, as of November, was a full point higher, at 5.7 percent, than the national average. It is one of the nation’s highest and the biggest gap between the state and national figures in more than 30 years.

There’s more, if you haven’t had your fill yet. A charter school law which state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has called the “absolute worst” in the nation; legislative salaries that are the second-highest in the nation; a budgetary reserve that is the second-lowest in the nation; regulations on the spending of shale gas impact fees (Act 13) that have revealed themselves to be fundamentally flawed. The list goes on and on.

So is it surprising that Pennsylvania is estimated to have lost population for the first time in 31 years? A Commonwealth Foundation report published last month found that the state lost more than 7,600 residents between July 2015 and July 2016. That’s one person every 11.5 minutes deciding that greener pastures lie elsewhere.

It’s up to Republicans, who control both chambers of Pennsylvania’s General Assembly by historic and overwhelming margins, to reverse this destructive cycle.

Otherwise 2017 will, like 2016, end up being a year of broken promises, dysfunctional government and stagnating prospects for Pennsylvanians.

—PAR