"I'm picking up expressions of support from more and more Democrats, but if you ask me who they are and who are the co-sponsors of my bill, the answer is I won't tell you and there is no bill," Bennett said Thursday before meeting with Sen. Orrin Hatch, who is working on his own Social Security reform bill.

With public support crumbling for Bush's proposal to divert payroll taxes into private accounts, the Utah Republicans are part of an expanding cast of GOP lawmakers trying to scavenge some sort of Social Security reform. Several key Republicans, including Vice President Dick Cheney, have acknowledged private accounts would force the government to borrow trillions of dollars to offset the loss of funding to the Social Security system.

Bennett's alternative has two parts: progressively cutting future benefits to the highest wage earners by as much as 50 percent and creating optional stock market investment accounts that would initially be funded by pay raises, not payroll taxes.

His plan has been attracting support from some conservative pundits. National columnist Robert Novak wrote this week that Bennett, "one of the wisest Republican heads in Washington, has quietly entered the Social Security maelstrom with a thoughtful compromise that puts his party at a crossroads."

Bennett's proposal would keep future Social Security benefit increases for the bottom third of wage earners tied to the current system. The other two-thirds in the middle and upper wage bracket would have their increases calculated under a new formula that would mean less money for retirement, but increases would still keep pace with inflation.

Bennett maintains the benefit cuts are better than the alternative of not addressing Social Security's future solvency problem with Baby Boomer retirements.

"If we do nothing, those benefits will be cut even more," said Bennett.

Democrats have warmed to the "blended indexing" portion of Bennett's plan, he says, but he acknowledged many are still not willing to endorse any form of privatization through add-on accounts. No Democrat in either the House or Senate has publicly endorsed a specific proposal to change Social Security and a Washington Post survey of Senate Democrats released Friday found an overwhelming majority would oppose any plan involving private accounts, giving the party the numbers to use the parliamentary delaying tactic of a filibuster to kill a GOP bill.

Bennett is undeterred, however. Even if he has to drop private account options from his plan, he figures he has a politically acceptable solution for the White House and Democrats.

"If everybody coalesces around the first half of my plan, but says no to personal accounts, all the president has to do is say, 'Well, I'll accept that as a downpayment and live to fight another day on personal accounts,' " said Bennett. "Everybody can walk away with their heads up."

But Democrats may not have much incentive to work out a compromise on reforming Social Security. National polls have shown many Americans don't share the Bush administration's sense of urgency that Social Security is facing eventual bankruptcy. They are even less convinced that payroll taxes should be diverted from Social Security into the uncertain returns of the stock market.

"The Bush administration has seriously underestimated what Social Security means to the everyday life of Americans and the impact that Social Security has on those lives," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday.

Bennett's proposal must compete for political support against a dizzying array of other tweaks and transformations being proposed. Hatch has not released details of his undrafted plan, although he has said that private accounts fueled by payroll taxes won't fly in the closely divided Senate.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is floating a proposal to let Social Security trustees invest part of the current cash surplus in the system into the stock market. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., has introduced legislation allowing workers to steer 4 percent of their payroll taxes into private accounts in exchange for decreased guaranteed benefits and a higher minimum retirement age. And Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has been developing a proposal that could include raising the Social Security tax on the highest wage earners.

Bennett believes that some form of Social Security reform can be accomplished this year in Congress and maintains Democrats can't afford to obstruct all proposals.

"If they agree on a solution, the headline is 'President Bush wins on Social Security,' " said Bennett. "If they filibuster it, then he goes to the people and says, 'We all agree there's a problem and I've got a proposal on the table and they have none.' "

Changes to Social Security proposed

by Utah GOP Sen. Bob Bennett

Preserve the current law's guaranteed benefit payment levels for the bottom 30 percent of wage earners.

Reduce future retirement payments for the wealthiest 1 percent of seniors but allow the benefit to keep pace with inflation.

For wage earners between those bottom and top income levels, benefits won't increase as fast as they would under current law but will increase faster than inflation.

Allow workers to deposit a portion of future pay raises into an after-tax savings account to be invested in stock or bond funds similar to the choices federal employees have in their Thrift Savings Plan.

After a five-year trial with the new investment option, workers could voluntarily have a portion of their Social Security payroll tax diverted to the private account, reducing their eventual Social Security benefit.