As he did last year, President Clinton this week has offered a tax cut to the middle class, something around the $250 billion level over 10 years. And as they did last year, Republicans appear ready to counter with a much more aggressive tax cut, perhaps on the order of the $792 billion cut President Clinton vetoed last September. Taxpayers, usually a patient group, surely must be growing tired of these sorts of meaningless promises. They deserve better.

The tax cuts at just about any level are possible because of the budget surplus, which even after Social Security demands are met, still is considerable, or could be, if Congress and the White House were willing to cut domestic and military spending or at least prevent any spending increases, as outlined in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. But they are not, as shown by the last budget agreement, which exceeded the ’97 budget caps by tens of millions of dollars. And there isn’t a chance that some future Congress is going to squeeze the budget back under these levels.

So any talk about budget surpluses should be considered in light of higher-than-expected spending levels. There may still be some space for a small, targeted tax cut, but it cannot be of the size the president is proposing, unless the nation is planning to return to deficit spending. After so many years of trying to get away from adding to the national debt, an extended economic boom is not the time to return to it.

President Clinton recently paid Alan Greenspan the compliment of appointing him to a fourth term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Too bad the president doesn’t listen to him more closely on issues like the budget surplus. It was just six months ago that Mr. Greenspan said, “As I have been saying since late last year as the surpluses began to evolve, these have been exceptionally beneficial to the economy, to economic growth, price stability; that the longer we can allow them to run and run down the debt outstanding to the public, the better off we will be.”

Choosing the dreary course of paying down the debt rather than the glitzy choice of a tax cut shows why Mr. Greenspan is in an appointed position rather than an elected one. But public reaction over this debate last year suggests that plenty of taxpayers would rather forego a small tax break now for a stronger federal budget in the future.

It is the tradeoff the president should be making instead of basing tax breaks on assumptions that are unlikely to occur.