Budget Increases over the Last Decade

So the question arises, how much has the budget really gone up in the last decade. Well, we have totaled up the whole budget from FY 2000 through FY 2009 (before the most recent round of 9C cuts) and the results are set forth in the table below:

Fiscal Year	Grand Total	Difference	Increase	Over 2000
FY00	$ 22,094,399,720		100.00%	100.00%
FY01	$ 22,473,012,963	$ 378,613,243	101.71%	101.71%
FY02	$ 23,325,548,029	$ 852,535,066	103.79%	105.57%
FY03	$ 24,692,274,727	$ 1,366,726,698	105.86%	111.76%
FY04	$ 23,135,858,331	-$ 1,556,416,396	93.70%	104.71%
FY05	$ 24,098,331,541	$ 962,473,210	104.16%	109.07%
FY06	$ 25,138,808,460	$ 1,040,476,919	104.32%	113.78%
FY07	$ 26,795,395,705	$ 1,656,587,245	106.59%	121.28%
FY08	$ 28,313,126,959	$ 1,517,731,254	105.66%	128.15%
FY09	$ 29,662,031,134	$ 1,348,904,175	104.76%	134.25%

As you can see, the increases have actually not been that dramatic. From FY 2003 through FY 2005, the budget was actually in negative territory, going from $24.7 billion back to $24.2 billion. In that 10 year period, the budget has risen from $22 billion to $29.7 billion, which represents an annual increase of approximately 3.42% annually, on average. That is a little bit higher than the average inflation for the country as a whole (measured by the Consumer Price Index, or "CPI"), which was about 2.6% annually for the same period. The difference can probably mostly be attributed to the rising cost of health care, which makes up a big chunk of the state budget.