The Valentine’s Day Budget

Let’s talk about love for a moment. Valentine’s Day is here, and, as usual, it’s a mandatory holiday. After Thanksgiving’s orange, the red and green of Christmas and before the fluorescent green of Saint Patrick’s Day (when even the fountains of the White House are dyed mint green) comes the carmine red of Saint Valentine. Red fills the screens, the commercials, the displays. There’s even pink on the playgrounds.

In the United States, the holiday is not just for those in love. As early as nursery school, one sends tender, little cards called “valentines.” Chocolate is given to teachers and heart-shaped biscuits to four-legged companions. According to the National Retail Federation, the American consumer spent five dollars in 2010 on gifts for his or her dogs and cats — a rise of two dollars from 2009, the annus horribilis of Valentine’s Day. For adults, magazines regurgitate advice on how to rekindle flames. Put up a Post-It on the TV, for example: “I’m the one you better turn on!”

Valentine’s Day is the second greatest commercial event of the year after Christmas. Men spend $160 on jewelry and chocolate, and women spend (“Only!” whine the men) $75. All in all, Americans spend $180 million on cards, $36 million on boxes of chocolate, and $110 million on roses every Feb. 14. Thanks to Congress, which has renewed its favorable treatment of Colombia (in waiting for the free trade agreement that’s still in limbo), there will be no tax barriers on roses again this year. The majority of flowers come from Latin America.

That said, according to Greg Grodek, the guru of conjugal “romance,” red roses are a bit passé. The “new romance” requires a new attitude: “Bring Food. Arrive Naked.”

Valentine’s Day has suffered the effects of the crisis, but industry men see the light at the end of the tunnel: an 11 percent rise in spending this year. Hallmark, the mega-producer of cards, can breathe easy. The company offers 1,600 different cards just for Valentine’s Day, one of which is embedded with a device that produces an electronic animation when placed before a webcam. Hallmark is so closely associated with the card-giving tradition that the company feels obligated to promise on its blog that no, they did not invent Feb. 14 to beef up their figures. Not even Secretary’s Day (end of April) or Boss’ Day (October 16), which many call “Hallmark Holidays” or artificial holidays, are seen as necessary for the business.

This year, Valentine’s Day is highly anticipated in Washington. It’s the day that Barack Obama has chosen to deliver his 2012 budget to Congress. Normally, the budget is published at the beginning of February, but the White House has fallen behind. Congressmen have little right to complain. They have not yet managed to pass even one of 13 budgetary appropriation laws to finance the government.

Experts foresee more thorns than roses in Barack Obama’s propositions. Since the November elections, the American president has made many efforts to appease through how he manages his affairs. He brought in Gene Sperling to direct his economic council and Bill Daley to take care of his cabinet, men whose first political gesture was to have lunch with Tom Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the group of the most powerful business owners in the world. At the beginning of the week, he crossed Lafayette Square to go meet with the institution that spent millions to bring down the Democratic majority during the last elections.

Barack Obama is obviously trying to get business owners on his side or, in any case, a side less opposite. And if he can pull a few away from the Republican bloc, it would be a master stroke. He hopes to succeed by rallying entrepreneurs around his infrastructure improvement project, which is not impossible; there has definitely been some common discourse between the Chamber of Commerce and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organization (AFL-CIO). Business owners could possibly support him on immigration. From his side, he has agreed to take another look at his healthcare reform, critiqued by small and medium enterprises.

But right now, the Republicans are sharpening their blades for the impending battle. They do not want to hear talk of investments, infrastructure, or spending. Their secret weapon: refusing to vote to raise the national debt ceiling or to raise the government’s operational budget as long as they have not obtained drastic budget cuts.

On Valentine’s Day evening, Barack Obama is supposed to go out with Michelle. In a YouTube interview, he confided that the further he goes, the more expensive Valentine’s Day gets for him. “I’ve got more to make up for. Used to be, I could just get away with flowers,” Obama joked. Right now, all Michelle wants is time.