Pennsylvania’s budget stalemate is an example of divided and dysfunctional government. But the state’s fiscal and political challenges are not unique.

Illinois, the only other state without a budget, is a mirror image of Pennsylvania with a Republican governor facing a Legislature controlled by Democrats.

Gov. Bruce Rauner is criticizing lawmakers for not passing business-friendly legislation and for pushing higher taxes.

In Pennsylvania, it’s Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, pushing for higher taxes while the Republican dominated Legislature wants to avoid tax increases.

A more interesting comparison to Pennsylvania is Connecticut where Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, is proposing spending cuts, saying he’s facing “a new economic reality.”

Some Connecticut lawmakers say the financial challenges are not new. They argue that when Malloy was running five years ago, he supported higher taxes, saying proposed budget cuts would leave Connecticut “unrecognizable.”

Times have changed. Earlier this month, Malloy submitted a budget plan including spending cuts, saying: “This budget is based not on how much we want to spend, but how much money we actually have to spend.”

Malloy notes that Connecticut and 26 other states have not seen revenues recover to precrisis levels.

A survey of other states’ budgets provides additional perspective on Wolf’s plan to increase state spending 7.1 percent. The national average for state spending growth in 2015-16 is 4.1 percent.

The Harrisburg Patriot-News looked at budgets for 15 large states and found only two with bigger increases than Wolf wants for Pennsylvania. Georgia came in first, with an 8.7 increase and Virginia was second at 8.1 percent. Pennsylvania, based on Wolf’s 7.1 hike, ranked third, ahead of California at 6.5 percent and Washington at 5.1 percent.

Other large states came in well below Wolf’s proposal with Massachusetts seeing a 3.5 percent increase and Arizona spending going up 3 percent. At the low end, New York is at 1.7 percent and Florida will increase spending 1.1 percent. North Carolina is managing with a 0.8 percent spending hike.

The Wolf administration defends the big spending push in the 2015-16 budget, which still has not been approved, saying other states raised taxes following the financial crisis — and now Pennsylvania, which did not raise taxes, has more ground to make up. Critics of Wolf’s spending plan point out that economic growth in the state is slow and state taxpayers cannot support the third-highest spending increase in the nation.

In Connecticut, the Legislature does not fully back Malloy’s reduced spending plan, but at least some lawmakers are not blind to the economic reality the governor sees. State Sen. Beth Bye, a Democrat, was quoted in the Hartford Courant saying, “We have to bring the budget into balance, and certainly there are going to be cuts.”

It would be encouraging if Democratic lawmakers in Harrisburg and Gov. Wolf saw the same realities — stepping forward with spending cut plans to minimize tax increases necessary to balance the budget.

In Connecticut, Gov. Malloy’s plan calls for 5.75 percent across-the-board spending reductions and trimming the number of state workers by about 1,000.

Wolf should follow Malloy’s lead and accept economic realities in Pennsylvania. A proposal by Wolf with some real spending reductions and a cut in the state payroll might be seen by Republicans as a good-faith effort and practical approach to balancing the budget. Republicans might then accept some tax increases, if they were accompanied by spending cuts, payroll reductions and money-saving reforms to the state pension system.

Wolf’s plan to increase spending more than all but two states does not reflect economic reality.