Where Are The Leaks On The Obama 2013 Budget?

Quick note: With the president's budget scheduled to be released next Monday, it's unusual at this point for there not to have been at least a few leaks about what's going to be proposed. This especially is the case because the release was delayed by a week and that provided a few extra days (1) for reporters to work their sources and (2) for the White House to work the reporters.

There are three kinds of leaks when it comes to the president's budget:

1. Planned by the White House to get some early attention for something positive
2. Planned by the White House to take the sting out of something people aren't going to like
3. Planned by an department or agency, usually to build opposition to a decision made by the White House that it doesn't like
4. Unplanned because reporters are able to find out something

Number 3 is often what comes first and the kind that I had expected to emerge this year given that most departments and agencies were asked to plan for a five percent cut this year.

Several possible explanations for why there have been no leaks as of yet:

The White House wanted to wait until after yesterday's GOP primaries in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado because they knew that the results would (and did) dominate the news cycle. After all, there's no reason to leak something if it's going to get lost in the other coverage. If this is true, the leaks will start on Thursday.

The president already told us much of what's going to be in the budget when he delivered the State of the Union Address weeks ago.

The White House doesn't want to emphasize "the budget" and is trying to keep the coverage to a one-day story that will start when the president's plan is released on Monday and end the next day. That would limit the opportunities for the GOP to respond.

Given the economic realities of the news business these days, the reporters who will be covering the budget next Monday are covering other stories this week. As a result, they don't have as much time or as good contacts to track down what up to now has been the usual pre-release stories.