WASHINGTON (AP) – The leading House bill to overhaul Social Security would marginally extend the program’s solvency, but it would add $851 billion to the national debt over 11 years, according to an analysis released Friday by the system’s chief actuary.

The bill calls for establishing personal retirement accounts for workers under age 55 and stocking them with Treasury bonds equal to the surplus Social Security taxes the government will collect each year through 2016. Next year alone the program expects to receive $84.5 billion more in payroll taxes than it needs for monthly benefit checks.

Currently such money is spent on other government programs or budget priorities, including tax cuts or funding for the war in Iraq.

While the bill’s Republican sponsors describe the legislation as “stopping the raid on Social Security” taxes, it would allow Congress to continue spending the surplus money through 2009, to ease the financial transition. At that time, a new central administrative authority would be empowered to expand the ways the money can be invested, as well as to propose an alternate means of financing the accounts.

That has prompted accusations by Democrats of duplicative accounting, as well as criticism that the accounts are merely a backdoor attempt to establish the private accounts favored by President Bush. Those accounts would be financed with a direct diversion of payroll taxes, not just surplus funds. So far the Bush plan has received a lukewarm reception both from the public and members of Congress.

Rep. Jim McCrery of Louisiana, along with Reps. Clay Shaw of Florida, Sam Johnson of Texas, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and John Shadegg of Arizona, filed the bill with little fanfare late Thursday. On Friday, the Republicans issued a statement announcing 34 additional co-sponsors – none Democrats.

“The GROW Accounts Act will stop the raid on Social Security by ensuring that Social Security taxes are spent the way they should be – only on Social Security,” Shaw said.

Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, replied in his own statement: “Despite the gimmicks and smoke screens, this bill unmasks the real Republican agenda by abandoning the pretense of addressing solvency and simply proposing massive borrowing and private accounts.”

The chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, Stephen Goss, also released an analysis saying the bill would leave Social Security solvent until 2043, instead of the projected 2041. He said that would occur because future benefits – paid by the program’s trust funds – would be scaled back based on growth in the tax-funded accounts.

Yet Goss said issuing the bonds to start the accounts would increase the annual budget deficit and the national debt – two things McCrery and his co-sponsors said at a June 22 news conference their legislation would not do.

A chart included in Goss’ 24-page analysis said $84.5 billion would be placed into the accounts next year. The exact amount per worker would depend on the worker’s payroll tax payment, but a similar bill in the Senate projected that a worker earning $35,000 next year would get a deposit of $770.

Issuing the bonds would increase the federal budget deficit, projected this week to be $333 billion next year, by $87 billion, to a total of $420 billion. Goss said similar deficits would increase the national debt $850.7 billion by 2017.

That is the year the Social Security Administration is projected to pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, eliminating the surplus. Funding for the accounts would also end then, unless the proposed central administrative authority developed a new revenue stream.

Under the terms of the bill, the accounts would be automatic for all workers under the age of 55, although they could opt out at will. They would also be allowed one chance to return after opting out.

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