"I'm highly skeptical with what I've heard so far," 2nd District Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson said after Bush's State of the Union speech. "Private accounts do not address the issue of insolvency, and the president's proposal is going to entail a cut in the guaranteed benefits for future recipients."

Republican members of the Utah delegation sided with Bush's contention that adding private investment options must be done now. Sen. Orrin Hatch said the state's highest-in-the- nation ratio of youths and senior citizens to working-age adults demands that Congress tackle future shortfalls immediately.

"Working adults is a group that is shrinking in Utah and around the nation," said Hatch. "These workers cannot carry the coming burden for their parents, for themselves and for their children without some adjustments to the system."

Third District Rep. Chris Cannon said he would like to see the president go farther than the proposed 4 percent contribution and allow people to put their entire Social Security payroll tax into private investments.

"I'd like to see us move to a true privatization," Cannon said. "If we can shift money out of an inefficient government system and put that into the private sector, the world is going to be a much better place."

First District Rep. Rob Bishop said any eventual proposal should be similar to the simplified personal investment options for state employees in the Utah retirement system.

"The sooner we do it, the better the future will be," Bishop said. "I've listened to people saying there's no problem yet, but I have yet to hear them talk about anything they would do later that would not involve a benefit cut or tax increase."

Sen. Bob Bennett agreed with Bush's dire prognosis but balked at the president's claim that the current system is "headed toward bankruptcy." Democrats in the audience expressed their disagreement with that outlook by hooting and booing.

"His diagnosis was exactly correct except for the term 'bankruptcy.' He should have said 'drastically reduced.'

"No one could object to the idea we need to do something, but obviously there were some in the room who did," Bennett said.