Floridian offers compromise plan on Social Security reform

WASHINGTON — With the two parties seemingly at a stalemate over President Bush's proposal for private accounts in Social Security, Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr., R-Fla., says he hopes to promote his own Social Security plan as a potential compromise.

But as Congress returns from its weeklong recess, spokesmen for Republican leaders said Sunday that it was too early to talk of deals or throwing the president's plan overboard. And leading Democrats said they were unaware of any serious overtures from the Republicans.

"It's clear that the Republicans are going to have to get on the same page amongst themselves before they start any serious negotiations with Democrats," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader.

Shaw, a former chairman of the House Social Security subcommittee who announced the first version of his plan six years ago, said he believed it was time for compromise, "if we can find somebody to compromise with." His plan centers on voluntary retirement savings accounts added to Social Security that would not be financed by payroll taxes, as they would under Bush's plan. Under Shaw's plan, accounts would be financed by a refundable income tax credit, capped at $1,000 a year, and would require substantial government borrowing.

Such "add-on" accounts have been widely considered a potential compromise on the Social Security issues, since Democrats are strongly opposed to diverting payroll taxes for such accounts. Shaw said in an interview on Sunday that he was shopping his plan on his own, without the blessing of the Republican leadership or the White House.

At the same time, some leading Republicans, including Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate and chairman of its subcommittee on Social Security, have dismissed Shaw's plan. "That would certainly not meet my desire," Santorum said Sunday on "Meet the Press" on NBC. "I don't think it solves the problem."

In a measure of how polarized Capitol Hill has become on this issue, Shaw said he planned to meet with some Democratic senators, but he declined to name them. In the House, he said of Democrats: "They're just dug in to say no. There's nobody really to talk to on the House side."

Democrats, fortified by a week at the grass roots, where many found strong opposition to the president's plan, seem unlikely to return in a mood to give ground. "As long as privatization with its massive borrowing is on the table, there's not going to be a bipartisan compromise," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Finance Committee, which will deal with Social Security.

An article in The Washington Post on Sunday suggested that the Republicans were ready to deal on Social Security, but spokesmen for party leaders said it was still early in the legislative process. "We need to keep talking to the American people about what our ideas are," said Dan Allen, spokesman for the House majority leader, Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas. "We have a ways to go before we sit down and start writing legislation."