WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint on Thursday filed the first Social Security bill to gain momentum among his GOP colleagues since President Bush made reconstructing the program his domestic priority.

On the theory that incremental progress on private accounts is better than no progress at all, the Republican from Greenville proposes using Social Security’s surplus to open scaled-down private Social Security accounts for millions of Americans.

“Locking this money away in personal accounts is the only good way to take this money off the table and to save it for retirement for American workers,” DeMint said. “Stopping the raid is the first step toward long-term reform.”

Democrats and Republicans have criticized Congress for spending Social Security funds that are not immediately needed to pay beneficiaries of the retirement and disability program.

This year, the surplus is projected at about $170 billion. But the surplus goes away — as would DeMint’s plan — in 2017, when the system is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes.

Without changes, Social Security is projected to go bankrupt in 2041.

DeMint’s plan — and a similar House plan introduced Wednesday — have earned the support of Republican leaders in Congress, who might put each measure to a vote or use them as platforms to construct broader bills to overhaul Social Security.

When DeMint unveiled his bill at the Capitol, at his side were several leading GOP figures in the Social Security debate, which began robustly earlier this year but has managed to capture little public attention recently.

U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., the third-ranking Republican in the Senate as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference and the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Social Security, has signed on.

“We’ve voted on gimmick after gimmick to save the Social Security surplus in budget resolutions and the like,” Santorum said. “This actually does it.”

Also on the podium with DeMint was U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who has agreed — and differed — with DeMint on Social Security. While each strongly advocates introducing private accounts into Social Security, DeMint’s accounts would be larger than Graham’s.

And DeMint rejects Graham’s suggestion to raise the cap on income that is subject to the 12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax. The current limit is $90,000. DeMint calls this an unacceptable tax increase.

But Graham endorsed DeMint’s plan Thursday as one of 10 co-sponsors.

“There are two things you can do with the surplus,” he said. “You can do what we’re doing, which I think is sneaky and deceptive. Or you can do what Jim is proposing and what we’re all supporting, which is very honest.”

DeMint’s plan may or may not engage the Bush administration. DeMint said he consulted closely with an encouraging White House on it. Publicly, though, Bush and his aides have been restrained in their remarks.

The DeMint plan is far less ambitious than those endorsed this year by Bush and most Republicans — including DeMint — in that it does not propose to solve Social Security’s long-term solvency problems.

But Democrats and others who oppose private accounts say DeMint’s bill is no more appetizing than what the GOP has been pushing: solvency plans that allow younger workers to place part of what they now pay into Social Security into personal stocks and bonds accounts.

“They’re just trying to get the camel’s nose under the tent,” said U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. “That’s all this is. Any time you start down that road to these accounts, you remove the guarantee aspect of Social Security.”

Democrats argue that private accounts will expose people who rely on Social Security to risks inherent in the stock and bond markets, weakening the safety net of the 70-year-old program.

“It is a gimmick, a vehicle to keep alive a plan that has fallen flat with the American public,” said Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for Americans United to Protect Social Security, a coalition of groups that oppose Republican plans to change the system.

“They are searching for any vehicle, any bill, anything that can keep their hopes to privatize Social Security alive.”

But DeMint’s bill is also vintage DeMint in that the new senator — a congressman for six years before his election last year — has always advocated for change that transfers money from the federal government to taxpayers.

His measure, he said, also would show how Congress paints an overly rosy picture of the deficit, in that lawmakers would no longer be allowed to count the Social Security surplus as an asset.

“It’s a little sunshine on what we’re spending,” he said.

Reach Markoe at (202) 383-6023 or lmarkoe@krwashington.com