The provision also said lawmakers ''should work together at the earliest opportunity to enact legislation to achieve a solvent and permanently sustainable Social Security system." It omitted details of how the program would be reshaped.
In the mostly party-line votes that followed, the Republican-controlled Senate rejected a Democratic plan that would make it harder for Congress to approve future tax cuts or spending increases until Social Security's long-term solvency is assured.
It also defeated another Democratic proposal stating opposition to any overhaul of the program involving deep benefit cuts or a big debt increase.
Yet in a mostly party-line 56-to-43 vote, senators approved a similar provision by Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, warning that failure to act would cause ''massive debt, deep benefit cuts, and tax increases."
Overall, the votes appeared to signal an eagerness by both parties to attack each other over Social Security rather than take specific, politically risky steps to shore it up.
Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, told Democrats that rather than offering a plan for overhauling the giant pension program, ''You just put out there amendments which are for the purposes of political protection. You should be ashamed of yourselves."
Democrats said their proposals were aimed at underscoring the need to protect Social Security.
''Are the priorities new tax cuts that aren't paid for or new spending that isn't paid for, or is our priority to restore the solvency of the Social Security fund?" asked Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the budget committee's top Democrat. The votes were amendments to the $2.56 trillion budget the Senate was debating.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the House Budget Committee cast doubt on whether the two chambers will ultimately be able to write a compromise budget, saying the Senate's outline lacked enough spending cuts. The House plan calls for $69 billion in five-year reductions in benefits like Medicaid, more than double the Senate's $32 billion.
Bush's Social Security proposal to create personal investment accounts still lacks many specifics, but it has become a top domestic issue and one of the most politically potent as well. The president would let workers born after 1949 invest some of their Social Security taxes in stocks and bonds.
The administration has estimated the transition costs for the next 10 years at $754 billion -- critics predict a higher price tag -- financed by extra federal borrowing. The Senate budget aims to gradually reduce the record federal deficits while cutting domestic spending and bolstering defense and security programs.
