Gov. Sam Brownback had the chance to rewrite the script this week. Instead, he offered a lackluster sequel to a governorship Kansans have already grown weary of.

Brownback addressed the Legislature Tuesday during the State of the State speech. It was Brownback’s seventh such address, but it felt different from the previous six. Gone were dozens of Brownback’s legislative allies, ousted in the 2016 elections by voters clearly unhappy with the direction of state government.

Facing a $983 million deficit, a lagging economy and the worst approval rating (26 percent) of any governor in America, the speech was Brownback’s chance to offer a new vision. It was the chance to show Kansas voters that he understood the frustration they expressed in November and that he was open to different approaches that might help pull the state out of its growing fiscal hole. It was an opportunity to eschew stubbornness in favor of compromise.

Instead, Brownback did what he has always done: He doubled down on the policies he has long championed but that have yet to work.

Brownback presides over a state whose economy ranks 41st out of 50, according to Business Insider. He presides over a state where job and income growth lag and where tax collections consistently have fallen short of expectations. He presides over a state that is in a billion-dollar hole and desperately needs an escape plan.

But the Brownback of 2017 is as enamored of trickle-down tax policies as the governor who pushed them through in 2012 and 2013. He won’t back off the decision to eliminate state income taxes for more than 330,000 farmers and business owners. He continues to insist tax cuts produce job creation and motivate consumer spending and that if not for a rural recession and setbacks in the oil and gas and aviation industries, the Kansas economy would be riding high.

With tax reform off the table, on Wednesday, the governor revealed his plan to fix the state budget. He called for continuing to “sweep” money out of the state highway fund into other parts of the budget and for selling the state’s tobacco settlement funds. He advocated borrowing $317 million out of state idle funds. He supported keeping K-12 funding flat, pooling all public school teachers into the same insurance and freezing contributions to the state’s pension fund.

He pushed for a dental school for KU and a scholarship program for students who commit to teaching in rural areas. He challenged the state’s universities to develop four-year degree programs that cost less than $16,000 total. He offered no guidance on how the universities should fund those reduced-cost degrees.

Most of the ideas Brownback presented have been pitched before. Many are short-term, one-time fixes that don’t address the bigger problem of the growing gap between what the state spends and what it brings in. And Brownback offered no strategy for dealing with an anticipated Supreme Court order requiring the state to spend millions more on K-12 education.

Brownback’s “stay-the-course” speech set a disappointing tone for the legislative session. Legislators from both parties have pledged to voters that they are open to doing whatever it takes to address the state’s budget woes, including tax reform. But such reform better have enough support for a veto override, because the governor made clear this week he plans to stay in the bed he made years ago, ignoring the many lumps that have developed.