It's a pretty universal experience. Spring eases into Cambridge and students hit the streets in search of summer housing. Last year I fell in step with the crowd and, combing through the leftovers, I found gold. It was fully furnished, with nice off-street parking, a sizable bedroom, even a front porch to park one's bike-or oneself-on after a long day. All that was lacking in the housing deal, it seemed, was the deposit.

That is, the $400 I didn't have.

Funny how we're all in the same boat. Even the Federal Government finds the perfect flat for a not-so-flat-rate each spring. Sure, it sounds like a great place to spend the year, settling into a spot Congress and the President have cleared from the debris of cut federal programs and eroded health care spending.

But as the announcement routinely arrives that we're nearly out of debt, that the budget is precariously balanced or, as President Clinton currently trumpets, we're in "surplus," one wonders just what the nation's buying into.

The fact is, the budget is no more balanced than it was last year when legislators were singing the same old "You must pay the rent--I can't pay the rent!" song. The money may be there, but as I and so many other students learn each year when housing deposits are due, credit and your good name can only go so far.

I paid for my deposit with a loan, just like the Federal Government did for the leaky-roofed shack of a Federal Budget we all currently occupy.

The money wasn't loaned to the government by outside interest groups or even foreign banks: it came from the American public and most likely will not be paid back. In return we all are allowed to reside in the cold comfort farm of what the Federal Budget provides. And that's not much.

Fact is, it ain't too clean, it ain't too pretty, and it certainly doesn't have anything in surplus except holes. The biggest hole is in Social Security. That's what the Government has essentially been borrowing from to balance the budget. To create economic surplus, we are collectively trading on our future.

With the state of Social Security already in jeopardy due to the baby boomer bulge, this is risky business. Basically, it would be the equivalent of my borrowing from a potential pension to pay rent for that perfect summer apartment. And the final product the government's betting on isn't nearly as high quality.

In fact, with its shaky foundation built on pipe-dream funds, the current Federal Budget "surplus" seems less like my stellar apartment find, and more like the leftovers.