Let's start with a quick walk down federal budget memory lane.  

It used to be that getting a copy of the president’s budget as soon as possible after it was released was a painful, multi-step, difficult, and time-consuming process. 

First, I had to make sure I was on the list to pick up the (depending on the year) five to seven books (2000 or so pages) at the Government Printing Office. Then I had to get myself to GPO early on the day the budget was released, get on line, wait for about an hour in what usually was cold weather, and then buy and haul the budget back to my office. It was expensive – $100 or more. Cabs were often difficult to find near GPO, the books were heavy and cumbersome, and I typically tried to look at a few tables on the way back to the office to get a head start on an already tough day that was going to get tougher.

Now fast forward to next Monday when the Obama fiscal 2011 budget will be released. This will be the third year in a row that the president’s budget will be published in PDF and made available to everyone on the web. I’ll be sitting at my desk in my (presumably, although you never really know) warm office, with a cup of great coffee (I have my own machine; stop by any time) ready to seize the day.  And instead of getting paper cuts while thumbing through the budget during my cab ride back from the GPO bookstore, I’ll be able to look at the contents and go immediately to the table that, hopefully, will tell me what I need to know.

I'll also be green without trying very hard.  OMB projected when the PDF format was first used in 2008 that it would save $1 million in printing costs and 20 tons of paper each year.  I'm told that's close to 500 trees. These are trees that, a week or so after the budget was released, basically just sat on my shelf for the rest of the year until I tossed them in the trash.

This is a real progress that my dad, who died in 1969, couldn't possibly have even imagined.  For that matter, I'm pretty sure that none of us budget wonks thought it possible in 2000.

Personal note to my Beautiful and Talented Wife (The BTW)...next year I'd like to read the president's budget on a new iPad.