President Bush revived his Social Security personal accounts proposal in his fiscal year 2007 budget proposal, but nobody expects it to be any more successful this year than it was in 2005.

Bush's effort to make personal accounts a part of Social Security went nowhere in 2005, as Democrats united against it and many Republicans expressed wariness about moving the program away from its traditional guaranteed benefits.

Although the measure has resurfaced in the president's spending plan for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, the White House, unlike in 2005, has made no public mention of it and is not expected to push for Congress to act on it. Bush did not even discuss it in his Jan. 31 State of the Union address. Whereas Social Security reform was a centerpiece of last year's speech, Bush's only reference to the program this year was in calling for a commission to "examine the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. ... We need to put aside partisan politics and work together and get this problem solved."