House Ways & Means Budget Recommendations

The House Ways & Means Committee reported it's budget for FY 2010 today.  Your intrepid budget watcher has run the numbers, and here's how they look:

FY09:  $29,669,583,970
GOV:   $30,872,229,255
HWM:   $29,345,431,975

Click here to see a full spreadsheet with a complete comparison of every line-item from FY09 (Chapter 182 of the Acts of 1988), House 1 (the Governor's recommendation), and House 4100 (the House Ways & Means recommendation).

This means the following:

• The Governor proposed a budget that was $1,202,645,285 over the level of the FY09 Budget.  This amounts to a 104.05% increase from FY09.

• The House Ways & Means Committee has proposed a budget which is -$324,151,995 less than the FY09 budget.  This represents a decrease of 98.91% from the FY09 levels.
  

However, keep in mind that these numbers are BEFORE the Governor's 9C cuts, which he made in October of 2008 and January of 2009.

Here is my question: I keep hearing that the sky is falling, and that the Commonwealth needs to make drastic budget cuts from previous fiscla years.  Honestly, I don't see it.  I'm not sure I understand how these proposals reflect a drastic reduction in the size of state government.