WASHINGTON -- At long last, Al Gore has reappeared! He is pursuing the political training school program that he had floated in a more full-blown way last spring. Al, sporting a full beard, is working with his fellow Tennessee loser, Republican presidential wannabe Lamar Alexander, training young people in political action. A number of former Gore staffers are the lecturers. The trainees are destined, according to Al, to work in the elections of 2002 . . . and maybe to help him in 2004.

It looks like he is serious about keeping his presidential option open. He accepted an invitation to speak at the Iowa Jefferson Jackson Day Dinner in late September. That is a candidate's "must perform" event. His acceptance sends a message to other prospects for 2004 that Big Al is likely to be on the march.

Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic National Committee chairman, will be glad to see him return. He has wanted to get Al to help the committee raise money. Now, he can get into high gear. Questions remain, however, about Gore's welcome with former President Bill Clinton. It would appear that resolving his differences with Clinton is one of the first tasks facing Gore, if he wants to regain his place among the party's most faithful.

Where has all the surplus gone?

While President George W. Bush is having a "working vacation" at his ranch home in Texas and members of Congress are off to far corners of the world, the top issue for fall is taking shape. It is the budget surplus, or what's left of it.

You may recall that the red-hot economy of the past four years generated such revenues that the federal budget ran a surplus. Enormous surpluses were projected into the foreseeable future and the problem of deficit financing of the U.S. government seemed to be a thing of the past. The problem during the last campaign seemed to be how best to use it. Gore wanted to pay off the national debt and sequester such funds as necessary to "fix social security" in a lock box.

Bush wanted to give the money back to the people in a gigantic tax cut and lessen the temptation for the spendthrifts in Congress to throw the money at wasteful federal programs. There would be plenty to go around and clean up the national debt in due time, he said.

Bush won the election and had his way. He persuaded Congress to pass his tax cut. He said it would not impact adversely on the federal budgets. There was plenty of money to do what he needed in education and defense, and still get the debt paid off. There would be no further need to borrow from the Social Security trust fund to settle Uncle Sam's debts.

The Democrats screamed loud and hard: "You are sowing the seed of another gigantic debt. Interest payments (now about 20 percent of federal expenditures) will continue to sap the funds needed to create the kind of America we all want. You will be taking money set aside for the elderly and the sick and the needy."

Well, the economy turned dim. The revenues became slim. And Bush has a sour pickle on his plate. There was a bit of a gasp a month ago when the Treasury went out into the bond market to borrow money to have the cash to fund the income tax rebate that is the first phase of the Bush tax cut.

The overall surplus is expected to be between $150 billion and $160 billion, the second highest on record, but virtually all of that was generated by Social Security payroll taxes. Since lawmakers in both parties have pledged never to touch the Social Security funds, that means, in coming years, much less money left for promised increases in defense and education spending or a Medicare prescription drug benefit.

With Congress poised to pass 13 spending bills that must be enacted into law before the new fiscal year starts Oct. 1, the news about the smaller surplus will intensify pressure on Republicans to rewrite the bills to reflect constraints.

Democrats believe the budget problems will hand them a potent political weapon going into the 2002 elections. They can say, "I told you so! President Bush's tax cut threatens programs ranging from Social Security to education." Indeed, the political stakes are so high that some Republicans are floating the idea of finding a way to reimburse Social Security if any payroll tax money needs to be spent now.

Democrats charge that Bush's tax cut is eating away the surplus. Republicans blame the slowing economy for the revenue shortfall; corporate tax receipts have fallen 12 percent so far this year. Some of the immediate political problem stems from an earlier accounting change approved by the administration.

This is not a fiscal problem for the government. In a $2 trillion federal budget -- and a $10 trillion economy -- a few billion dollars is literally spare change. But the political ramifications could be enormous, both sides agree. It is a political problem for the administration. They painted a rosy picture and now, the clouds have rolled in.

President Bush is stuck with his story that "excessive spending" by Congress -- not the deep tax cut he persuaded lawmakers to approve -- poses the main threat to the shrinking budget surplus. He will try to shift the blame, portraying himself as "the person who's got the opportunity to bring fiscal sanity to Washington." He will tell Congress he will be "watching carefully" to guard against "a last-minute budget raid" and that he might veto spending bills this fall if he considers them inflated. That may be a tough sell.