Seemingly every budget session lawmakers promise to cut spending. This year is shaping up to be no different. But as the following graph shows, Albany has been shelling out bigger and bigger bucks every year almost without interruption.  State spending is nearly twice what it was fifteen years ago, and has been rising at a steady clip.
Naturally, revenues have been forced to keep pace, and they too have mostly doubled since FY 1994. But since they have not always kept pace, the state-related debt has grown larger and larger ever year, even though several times over the past decade and a half spending and revenues have been equal, or nearly so.