WASHINGTON -- South Carolina's senators have made it clear they will take a leading role in the fight to reform Social Security next term, with an emphasis on private security accounts.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who proposed a bill a year ago that would allow younger workers to put 4 percent of their payroll taxes into a personal retirement account, announced last week that the Social Security Administration conducted an analysis of his plan and found it eventually could make the program solvent.

The state's soon-to-be senior senator said tax increases might even be a way to pay for it.

"Democrats and Republicans should have the same goal: reform Social Security to keep it from going bankrupt forever," Graham said. "Anything short of that goal is politics at its worst. It's political malpractice."

U.S. Sen.-elect Jim DeMint, a Republican, also spoke out last week in favor of private retirement accounts that would "make every American a saver and investor."

"We need to go beyond debating whether or not we're going to change Social Security because we're beyond that point," he said at a forum hosted by the Washington-based conservative Heritage Foundation, which Graham also attended. "Now we need to debate what type of plans that we have."

High on President Bush's agenda for his second term is creating what he calls an "ownership society" by creating private accounts. Although Social Security now is running a surplus, the program is expected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes by 2018 and could be bankrupt by 2042.

Graham's plan would allow retirees and those about to retire to remain on the current plan, while those with retirement accounts could invest in stocks and bonds.

He expects his plan to cost $1.1 trillion over a decade and said funding could come from closing corporate loopholes, borrowing money, and even raising taxes, a suggestion supported by neither DeMint nor the other Republican on the panel, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.

Graham said raising taxes, or increasing the cap on payroll taxes, wasn't his preferred method of financing, but he was willing to consider it to get Democrats on board.

"You can put all the Democrats who support these ideas in a phone booth," Graham said. "(Democrats) love this idea of taxing the rich, so if that turns you on, and that's the only way I can get you on my bill, then I am willing to entertain that idea."

AARP, an advocacy organization representing older Americans, prefers to use private retirement accounts to augment Social Security, not replace it. One of the group's biggest concerns with a new plan is how the government will pay for the transition period.

"Where are you going to get one to two trillion dollars?" said Evelyn Morton, the economic security director for AARP's federal affairs department. "Borrowing and asking future generations to pay the debt? Is that what the ownership society is about -- owning the debt?"