UPDATE: Rossi's new website is on-line.

Dino Rossi looks to be about ready to step up his public profile. And just like two years ago when he ran against Christine Gregoire for governor, Rossi is talking about the state budget.

Rossi told me that by the end of the day he hopes to have something up on the Web site of his non-profit group, Forward Washington, critiquing the state budget. Gregoire is releasing her budget proposal right now at a press conference in Olympia.

Rich Roesler at The Spokesman-Review got a sneak preview when he found this PowerPoint presentation and more details on Rossi's budget proposal.

Rossi said that Roesler saw a mix of a PowerPoint that he has been using in speeches for months and new material that he was not ready to unveil. Much of that has now been put behind password-protected firewalls, he said. He didn't know that as of this morning the PowerPoint was still accessible. His friends at Sound Politics have also linked to it.

Rossi seemed a little ticked that he got scooped by Roesler. He thinks accessing under-construction sites is "not kosher in the Web world, but apparently in the reporting world it is just fine."

Roesler cites a list of Rossi proposals — including reassessing collective bargaining agreements, reducing what health insurers have to cover and cutting taxes — that are no longer available on the Web site.

Rossi made his name in Olympia as chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee and he successfully negotiated a tough budget with former Gov. Gary Locke. So I understand why he focuses on the budget. But the budget situation lacks drama this year. As Rossi's slide show says:

National boom has bailed out Olympia for now...

Rossi realizes that with projections of surplus revenue it will be hard to get people to focus on state spending. His argument will be that substantive changes have to be made in the good times, to avoid problems in the future.

Since Rossi is retooling his PowerPoint, I have one suggestion. I'm not sure that playing off the titles of old Tom Cruise movies — "If Hollywood wrote about Olympia's legislative sessions" — is a real grabber with the youth of today. To suggest that if lawmakers improve the business climate and budgeting process, "Hollywood's next movie about Olympia might be 'Top Gun'" is just a little too 1986. As Goose famously said, "Is this your idea of fun, Mav?"