Democrats said they are not going to support any plan to change the government retirement program though the president got polls support for his Social Security overhaul plan and gave up the idea of partly privatizing the system.

"We’re at the beginning of a massive effort to reach out to the American people to create a dialogue," Treasury Secretary John Snow said in an interview.

The main part of Bush’s proposal is allowing younger workers to invest part of their Social Security payments in stocks and bonds.

’’The president is committed to these private accounts," Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said on ABC’s ’’This Week." ’’I’m committed to them." He also said added that the accounts were ’’absolutely essential" to the overhaul 70-year program. But Democrats will never support any revamping that included privatization.”

’’Democrats have said what they’d do. We’re not going to negotiate with someone that’s trying to destroy [Social Security]. Privatization destroys it," Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said ’’Privatization cannot be on the table."

’’The privatization proposal of the president is going to destroy Social Security as we know it. And let me tell you why. It doesn’t strengthen Social Security. It weakens it. It doesn’t address the solvency problem," Senate minority whip, Richard Durbin said.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. And some other democrats say that Bush “can forget about his plan to allow workers born after 1949 to divert some of their payroll taxes into stocks and bonds.” But "the president is not going to let this slip off the radar screen."