WASHINGTON (AP) – The Senate staged sparsely attended burial services Tuesday for President Bush’s long-dead plan to remake Social Security through creation of personal accounts.

Metaphors outnumbered mourners. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said every attempt to reach across party lines on Social Security had “met with a partisan obstructionism that is as rock-solid as the marble before me on the rostrum” in the Senate chamber.

Initially, he said the president and Republican supporters “tried to throw the long ball.” Now, “we’re just going to try to run off-tackle here … to see if we can get the ball down the field.”

He proposed legislation that would give everyone born before 1950 a legal guarantee to the Social Security benefit they are currently promised.

, future cost-of-living increases included.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., dismissed the maneuvering as political theater.

“Everyone knows this is not really a serious effort,” he said. “It’s just an attempt frankly to make a statement to the press and the people back home.”

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid blocked Santorum’s effort to force a full floor debate on the measure. “This legislation is a sham. S-H-A-M,” he said. “Social Security benefits are guaranteed today. … It’s the law of the land.”

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., joining forces with Santorum, wanted a debate on legislation requiring the government to place surplus payroll taxes into individual accounts set up in the name of all workers who pay into Social Security. He called the measure a “Stop the Raid Bill,” referring to the Social Security trust funds, and noted that the government currently spends the surplus payroll tax money on other federal programs.

“My Democratic colleagues oppose ownership,” he said. “They want the government to continue to spend the money on other things. … They say it’s going to increase the deficit. Again, not true. All this does is make us honest with our accounting.”

Reid objected once again, calling it “simply another bill to privatize Social Security.”

By its action, the Senate thus sealed a place in history for Bush’s proposals – a defeat administered to a president at the dawn of a second term by a Democratic minority demoralized by the loss of seats in the same elections.

The president issued his call in last winter’s State of the Union address, recommending personal savings accounts coupled with reductions in future benefits promised to younger workers. Without them, he said, the system would eventually go broke, requiring a cutback in benefits for all who receive them.

But confronted with near-unanimous Democratic opposition and polls showing voter unhappiness with Bush’s proposals, Republicans flinched. Legislation failed to reach the floor of either the House or Senate.

Treasury Secretary John Snow issued a statement praising Santorum and DeMint for their efforts. “The longer we wait for legislative action to comprehensively fix Social Security, the more difficult our choices will be,” he said.

Even so, there appears little prospect the GOP-controlled Congress will act soon.

Sen. Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said recently he does not envision action before the congressional elections in 2006.

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