BUDGET FACE-OFF BREWING IN D.C.(MAIN)

Byline: LIZETTE ALVAREZ New York Times

WASHINGTON -- Congress returns from its recess and President Bush from his ranch to face a vanishing budget surplus, a limping economy and a long list of competing spending priorities -- a recipe for a bruising political collision over spending and taxes.

With the Senate in Democratic hands by one vote and the House narrowly controlled by Republicans, the political stakes are enormous, especially if the result of the coming debate is a budget that continues to spend Social Security taxes instead of using them to pay off the federal debt.

``No one expected the surplus problem and the Social Security problem to appear this quickly,'' said Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., the House …