Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and like most of you, I'm planning to write a bad check for piles and piles of gifts. I'm not sure what, really. I won't keep much track. Even after I buy them, I'll probably be a little fuzzy on what exactly I paid for. And when the check bounces, I'll go right on pretending it didn't. Just like you.

Oh, you didn't realize that was in your plans for the day? Then you haven't been reading the papers.

Valentine's Day is the day the President's budget request for fiscal 2012 will drop on the desks of a divided Congress. It will be filled with jaw-dropping numbers – in FY 2010, the government spent a total of about $3.5 trillion, and took in about $2.4 trillion, making up the difference with – you guessed it – debt. A bad check worth more than $1.1 trillion.

Both parties have, of course, pledged to cut spending in this next round. The White House is starting to let specifics of its cuts trickle out. They can sound impressive, if the big numbers have numbed your mind enough. Obama's newly-confirmed Budget Director, Jack Lew, wrote in the New York Times this Sunday that "we have had to look beyond the obvious and cut spending for purposes we support. We had to choose programs that, absent the fiscal situation, we would not cut."

The Republicans are talking tough as well. Politico notes that Republican plans would "cut domestic programs by $100 billion and force the government to pay creditors before funding other priorities if the limit on the national debt is hit."

But, for all the talk, the proportions of the cuts are pathetically small. The White House is pushing the idea that a five-year freeze in spending growth should count as a cut (I don't know about you, but when I spend the same amount of money tomorrow as I did today, I don't actually spend any less money in the process), and arguing that the $775 million in cuts detailed so far is a significant change in federal policy.

But $775 million is just 0.02 percent of $3.5 trillion – and the FY '12 budget request should easily top the $3.5 billion we spent last year. The proposed cuts would leave us with more than 99.8 percent of our problem.

That's the challenge with these numbers – the figures can sound impressive in a speech, but against the actual spending total, they're nothing. Watch this excellent illustration of what each $100 million cut would actually mean to the federal budget to see what I'm talking about.

The problem is simply so huge that the solutions our politicians are discussing won't really dent it.

What does this all mean to contractors?

For one thing, we can expect a round of negative publicity in 2011 that will beat out anything we've seen in recent years. Not only is that Valentine's Day budget request coming, but the Continuing Resolution that's funding current government operations is set to expire on March 4 – meaning we'll get two rounds of very public budget battles in a fairly short time. On top of that, Congress will have to vote to extend the debt limit before long (the most pointless circus in all of politics – both parties vote to build debt over and over again every time they vote to spend money, but once every few years we let the minority party strut and posture as though they are against more debt with this vote). That perfect storm means the budget will dominate the news for the next few months – and contractors will be an easy target.

We can also expect, however, an opportunity for those who really know how to market. The Professional Services Council's Stan Soloway told us back in November that the contractors who survive the new fiscal austerity will be those that teach the government how to measure performance, and how to streamline operations. Effective budget cuts, he said, "could come more from working with the contracting industry to develop efficiencies than from insourcing functions and blaming the industry for inefficiencies."

That's the best advice we can give you. As you watch the budget battles unfold, starting on Valentine's day, don't fret over whether the fact that the bad check is coming due will mean trouble for your company. Approach the government clients you have, and the government clients you want, and tell them about your ideas for how to make their operations more efficient. Agency heads will be feeling that same political pressure to make their operations less expensive, and the best gift you can give them is a plan for how to do it.

If you build your company's competencies with that in mind, you can grow by helping them spend wisely. After all, you and I know how to write a check that clears. Even on Valentine's Day.