From Holden:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist sez there’s no way we will see a Social Security bill this year. Which, unless you can imagine Republicans voting to dismantle Social Security during the run-up to the 2006 elections, means Bush’s plan is essentially dead.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he couldn’t promise that a bill restructuring Social Security would be brought to a vote this year.

[snip]

“I don’t want to take something to the Senate floor where I’ve got every one of the members across the aisle saying there’s a problem,” Frist told reporters in Washington yesterday. “In terms of whether it will be a week, a month, six months or a year as to when we bring something to the floor, it’s just too early.”

The major impediment to Bush’s plan, aside from the fact that the vast majority of Americans oppose demolishing the most successful social welfare program in this country’s history, is organized Democratic opposition.

Republicans acknowledged that Democrats’ attacks on the president’s plan had been effective. “Democrats were very well organized,” House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told reporters.