Not much. The final budget spends a sizable part of the surplus, and the president -- far from objecting -- actually engineered much of the extra spending and boasts about it. He's especially proud of a new program to put 100,000 extra teachers in public schools. But Clinton also claims to have fulfilled his pledge to save all the surplus. This is, of course, double-speak. The wonder is that much of the public still swallows it.

Here is fresh evidence that this president's concept of the truth is whatever he wants it to be and whatever he thinks will play. It doesn't matter whether the subject is his sex life, schools or Social Security. Similar standards apply, and he maintains, despite the Lewinsky scandal, an abiding confidence that he can fool most of the people most of the time. And he may be right; certainly the budget debate offers no contrary evidence.

All politicians cast themselves as champions of children and saviors of Social Security. Few have succeeded as well as Clinton. "I am determined that this budget will make a strong down payment on our drive to hire 100,000 new, highly qualified teachers to reduce class size in the early grades," he said on Oct. 9. A few days later, he said: "We did save the surplus for . . . Social Security reform." These are regular refrains.

To judge their truthfulness, let's start with the $1.2 billion teachers' program. Well, the average teacher now makes about $39,000, not counting fringe benefits. At that level, the budget would support 30,800 new teachers. First-year teachers make about $28,000. At that level, the $1.2 billion would support 42,900 teachers. But federal payments would have to grow unless these teachers forgo seniority increases.

Naturally, Clinton covers himself. He claims only to be making a "strong down payment" on 100,000 teachers. Under his original proposal, there would be a seven-year phase-in. Peak funding was put at about $2.8 billion. But that wouldn't pay for 100,000 teachers, either; at today's salaries, that would require almost $4 billion a year and -- assuming pay raises -- more in the future.

Even if fully funded, this program may be a bad idea. No one disputes the goal of improving children's reading, and smaller classes would seem to help. Studies on class size, however, are mixed. Teacher quality may matter more. If more teachers would improve schools, we'd already see results. Consider. In 1970, there were 45.9 million students and 2.059 million teachers in public schools, grades K-12; that's 22 to 1. In 1998, there were 46.8 million students -- up 2 percent -- and 2.728 million teachers -- up 32 percent; that's 17 to 1. The need is not more teachers; it's better teachers who are better used.)

In effect, Clinton skimmed $1 billion off the budget to create a campaign slogan. How can such new spending be reconciled with the pledge to save "every penny of any surplus"? Not easily. Congressional budget procedures impose ceilings on various spending categories; these did not leave much room for large new programs. Although old programs could have been cut to finance the new, they usually weren't.

What did happen is that the president -- with Congress's approval and, ultimately, eager participation -- channeled almost $21 billion into an "emergency" appropriation bill that is exempt from the budget ceilings. These "emergency" spending bills are annual rituals. Their spending is usually tied to natural disasters (hurricanes, floods). This year's bill was different. First, it was three times as large as usual (the 1993-1998 average was $6.7 billion). Second, it stretched the meaning of "emergency" to include many items that properly belong in the regular budget: peacekeeping in Bosnia, the Y2K computer problem, payments to farmers.

With this giant loophole, Clinton could fund new spending and create room under the formal budget ceilings for new programs. Carol Cox Wait of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget doubts that this will cause just a "one-time spike in federal spending." The president and Congress, she says, won't "cut new spending $25 billion" from this year's level to stay within the budget ceilings. She thinks spending has permanently risen.

Hmmm. In September, Clinton criticized House Republicans for a tax cut that could have shaved $80 billion off the surplus over five years. He was right, but the extra spending in this new budget could erode the surplus by that much or more. Early in 1998, the Congressional Budget Office estimated a surplus for the new budget year (fiscal 1999) at $9 billion; the extra spending would have easily erased this. As it happens, the CBO later raised the estimates -- reflecting higher tax revenues -- to $80 billion. So lopping off $20 billion or so would still leave a surplus.

Clinton's political skills are dazzling. Despite the scandal, he maneuvered congressional Republicans into doing his bidding by attacking them as anti-surplus and anti-children. By contrast, Clinton's leadership is less admirable. He was right in January: The future commitments of an aging society, including Social Security and Medicare, should be faced before making new commitments. Unfortunately, Clinton has dodged the long-term problems. This endears him to today's elderly, who feel threatened by discussion of Social Security and Medicare. Meanwhile, Clinton pushes other new spending for, among others, children.

But the ultimate victims of these policies are today's children -- tomorrow's workers who will face either higher taxes or lower government services. We need an honest debate about the surpluses (assuming they continue) and programs such as Social Security and Medicare. But it's hard to have an honest debate when the guy who's leading it doesn't say what he means or mean what he says.