"Surplus Fever" is the headline as President Clinton submits his budget with a projected surplus of $9.5 billion. Upon receiving the president's budget, House Speaker Newt Gingrich proclaims a "generation of surpluses."

I wish this were true: no deficit, no increase in the debt, no increase in forced spending for interest costs on the debt. But, sadly, the Congressional Budget Office last week reported a deficit for fiscal year '99 of $200 billion, and a close examination of the the president's budget for 1999 reveals a projected deficit of $194.5 billion. What's going on here? What's the truth?

It's easy to determine the truth. All one needs to do is determine how much more one spends than is earned in a year, as every family does. Accordingly, one should ask: Does the president's budget receive more than it will spend, or does it spend more than it receives? Once again, as it has for the past 30 years, the government will spend more. In fact, the president's budget projects more spending than income each year for the next five years. Instead of surpluses "as far as the eye can see," deficits will be the order of the day -- Washington will continue to borrow and spend.

While the president talks about reserving 100 percent of every surplus, his budget borrows the pension fund surpluses in order to report a budget surplus. These pension funds are then spent on food stamps or foreign aid or some program other than Social Security. The same is true of the gasoline tax, which is intended for highways. In reality, the deficit is not eliminated; the deficit is merely moved from the general fund into the Social Security trust fund or the highway trust fund.

This gimmick is called "unified budgeting" with a "unified" deficit or surplus. It's a fraud. With the present surplus fever, the people think the government is finally on a pay-as-you-go basis. But in reality, the politicians continue to spend, running huge deficits in the trust funds. The following trust funds are in deficit for the following amounts as of FY 1999: Social Security, $845 billion; Medicare $148 billion; Military Retirement, $140 billion; Civilian Retirement, $490 billion; Unemployment Compensation, $81 billion; Highways, $35 billion; Airports, $15 billion; Railroad Retirement, $21 billion, and all others, $58 billion.

One can see that instead of making the airports safe with modern radar, we have spent $7 billion of airport travelers' money on everything but airports. No wonder the highways are crumbling, the bridges falling. We have spent $22 billion of the gas tax on everything but highways and bridges.

At the beginning of the fiscal year we owed the Social Security trust fund $631 billion, and are scheduled to owe $732 billion by the end of September this year, and under President Clinton's "unified" budget, we will owe Social Security $845 billion. As he loots another $113 billion from the Social Security trust funds, the president cries, "Save Social Security first." Obviously, the first way to save Social Security is to stop looting it.

To achieve this sham, the politicians in Washington argue that President Lyndon B. Johnson started this in 1968-69 by balancing his budget with Social Security trust funds. False. President Johnson balanced his budget without borrowing or spending any trust funds.

In those days, the most respected voice on fiscal policy or government spending was Rep. Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Mills announced his candidacy for president in 1972 by declaring that we ought to give the Social Security recipients a 10 percent cost-of-living increase. President Nixon countered with a 15 percent increase, and we started draining the Social Security trust funds.

By 1980 it was apparent that Social Security would soon be in the red. So the Greenspan Commission was appointed to solve the problem. In 1983 the Greenspan Commission Report not only called for a tax increase to balance Social Security's budget but instituted a graduated tax to build up a surplus to take care of the retirement of the baby boomers in the next generation. It's exactly this surplus that everyone wants to use to cut taxes or spend more.

The Greenspan Commission planned for Social Security to be fiscally sound through 2056. Now we hear that it will be broke in 10 years. In fact, it's already broke. Owing Social Security $732 billion by the end of September this year and continuing with "unified budgets" to obtain "unified surpluses," the U.S. government will owe Social Security $1.236 trillion by 2002. Who is going to suggest increasing taxes by $1.236 trillion to make Social Security sound?

In 1983 the Greenspan Commission provided against this disaster. To protect the Social Security surpluses for the baby boomers, Section 21 of the commission's report recommended that Social Security be removed from the unified budget. I struggled to institute this recommendation. Finally, in 1990, the Senate Budget Committee, by a vote of 20-1, reported legislation requiring that Social Security be removed from the unified budget. Congress overwhelmingly approved and President Bush signed into law (on Nov. 5, 1990) Section 13301 of the Budget Act forbidding the president or Congress from reporting a budget using Social Security trust funds.

This stricture is violated every day. Even today, submitting a budget with a projected $9.5 billion surplus, the president is in violation of Section 13301. Worse, he is in violation of his own admonition in the State of the Union message: "Tonight I propose that we reserve 100 percent of the surplus -- that's every penny of any surplus -- until we have taken all the measures necessary to strengthen the Social Security system for the 21st century."

To comply with President Clinton's clarion call, I have introduced a bill to prohibit Congress, in adopting next year's budget, from using any surplus as a set-aside for any increase in spending or cut in taxes. We must pass this legislation this year or we will burden our future generations with bills they will not be able to pay.

The writer is a Democratic senator from South Carolina.