Jeff Bliss and Laura Litvan have the interesting report for the Bloomberg news service.

Prospects that the U.S. Congress will pass an overhaul of Social Security this year have vanished, leaving Republicans to debate how best to walk away from the centerpiece of President George W. Bush's second-term domestic agenda.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate said a comprehensive proposal had no chance of being acted on this year, even though Republican leaders such as House Speaker Dennis Hastert, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Representative Roy Blunt haven't publicly abandoned the effort.

"It certainly doesn't appear to me it's going to happen," said Representative Jim Kolbe, an Arizona Republican and a supporter of Bush's proposal to create private investment accounts using Social Security funds.

[...]

"I don't think there's any chance at all it's going to move this year," Senator Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, said in an interview. "We've really got an impasse."

As one political scientist quoted by Bliss and Litvan expertly opines, Hurricane Katrina has finally provided the Republican Party with "an exit strategy" on private accounts.