Actually, I don't really disagree with Bruce on this.  But there are a few things that distinguish the Obama fiscal 2011 budget from all of the other presidential budgets that, as Bruce pointed out in his excellent history, have been quickly forgotten over the years.

First, as I noted several weeks ago, news coverage of the president's budget has changed completely from the days when the major national papers swarmed over the story and assigned ten or more reporters to cover what was proposed.  Today, the "news hole," that is, the amount of space/minutes actually devoted to actual news in the paper and on television, is far less and, other than disasters and crises, few stories get as much coverage as they used to.  This is specially true of a story like the budget, where, other than the by now routine picture of the books being delivered to the Hill or the Government Printing Office (see below), there are few interesting visuals (For the record, if you think tables and charts are exciting you are not the target audience for most newspapers and television news programs).

In other words, almost regardless of what's in the budget, there's less coverage now than has ever been the case.  Although you can argue that there's less coverage because there's less of a story, there's also less of a story because there's less coverage.

Second, to the extent that there's a budget story this year, it's much more about what Congress will do rather than what the president proposed.  All substantive proposals took, and are still taking, a backseat to that.  That's what editors want and that's what they're getting.  The most interesting thing is not what the president proposed; it's what, if anything, will come of it.

Third, there's little doubt that the White House didn't roll out the FY11 budget with as much flair as it did last year or, more importantly, as many other presidents have done in the past.  As I noted less than a week ago, the usual leaks from the White House were not leaked this year and that reduced what used to be several days of coverage before the budget was released to virtually nothing.  In addition, what previous administrations typically did-- a cavalcade of it's economic stars doing interview after interview before and after the budget was released -- did not happen this year.

Fourth, the submission of the budget is no longer the great positive it used to be for the White House.  Given the fiscal situation every president now faces, especially the fact that you're criticized if you don't propose to reduce the deficit and every deficit reduction option creates severe political problems, the requirement to submit a budget every year has become a huge problem rather than an opportunity.  It's no wonder, therefore, that presidents may not want to hype their proposals as much as has been the case in the past.

So, in spite of what economistmom Diane Lim Rogers said several weeks ago when she took issue with me when I said that the president's budget just wasn't as valuable now as it used to be (Diane said it still was "...a hugely important agenda or at least 'vision' for fiscal policy going forward"), it's hard not to conclude that the days when the president's budget -- Obama's or anyone else's -- being the story are gone for a long while.