WASHINGTON – A Senate panel hearing yesterday that was intended to foment bipartisan consensus on overhauling Social Security instead showcased the difficulty of reaching such a compromise.

“The only way we can move forward is to take privatization off the table,” said Senator Schumer, referring to the personal retirement accounts that President Bush has made a priority of his second term.

It appeared unlikely yesterday that all 11 Republicans or any of the 9 Democrats on the committee would support the president’s proposal to divert Social Security taxes into private accounts and replace defined retirement benefits with returns earned in the stock market.

Emerging from the tense meeting yesterday, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee acknowledged there may be insufficient committee support to pass a bill that would include the accounts.

“Obviously, if I don’t have 11 votes for them, they won’t be [included],” Senator Grassley, a Republican of Iowa, told CNN.

Outside the Capitol, hundreds of people demonstrated against the president’s plan at a rally led by Democrats and various activist groups.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush was in Galveston,Tex., promoting his ideas as part of a 60-day cross-country tour that wraps up on Sunday.The White House said he would continue his publicity campaign.

One Republican member of the committee, Senator Snowe of Maine, joined Democrats in speaking out against Mr. Bush’s proposed accounts. Social Security has become the “bedrock” of income support for her state’s elderly population “precisely because it’s defined and guaranteed,” she said. Without her support, the committee could deadlock 10-10.

A Democrat whose cooperation was personally sought by Mr. Bush, Senator Conrad of North Dakota, also expressed reservations. “I’ve always been one who thought that there was a kernel of a good idea in individual accounts, but I never thought it was a good idea to finance personal accounts with massive debt,” he said.

The White House also appeared to step back from its firm insistence on accounts yesterday. Asked whether the president would rule out any legislation that does not include accounts, the White House spokesman, Scott McLellan, said, “All ideas are on the table as far as he’s concerned, with the exception of increasing the payroll tax rate. This is a time when we should be welcoming ideas, not getting into ruling things out.”

Mr. Grassley called on Democrats to come forward with their own proposals for the system, which is projected to begin paying out more in benefits than it receives in contributions as of 2018.

“Those of you who are bad-mouthing every other plan, suggest your own plans!” he said, raising his voice in an otherwise genial hearing. “Doing nothing is not an option, because doing nothing is a cut in benefits.”

The senior Democrat on the committee, Senator Baucus of Montana, pledged that the committee would find a solution to the solvency problem, but he said the system does not need “drastic changes.” He emphasized that Social Security has sufficient funds to pay out full benefits until 2052, and 80% of benefits thereafter.

Senator Kerry, a Democrat of Massachusetts, agreed. “This is not complicated, and we are going to solve it. …If you just didn’t do the tax cut for the top 1% of Americans, you could pay Social Security through the entire century.”

One panelist, an economist at the Brookings Institution, Peter Orszag, a critic of the accounts proposal, suggested that Congress use the estate tax to make up part of the shortfall.

But the tax proposals did not sit well with Republicans.

“Those who want higher taxes, do they think they or someone else will pay for it?” Senator Hatch of Utah asked.

Several committee members told the panel that a reduction in the rate of growth of benefits is necessary to bring the system into balance.

“Solvency must be the main agenda,” the chairman of a Boston investment firm, MFS Investment Management, Robert Pozen, said. Mr. Bush has praised Mr. Pozen’s plan of “progressive indexation,” or reducing the rate of growth in benefits for higher income earners.

Senator Lott, a Republican of Mississippi, agreed that the change in indexation was necessary to reduce “explosive growth” in benefits, and Mr. Hatch said he was also interested in Mr. Pozen’s plan.

The director of the Project on Social Security Choice at the Cato Institute, Michael Tanner, said younger workers deserve the choice of staying in the existing system or switching to an account that could bring higher returns.

“Don’t stand in the doorway and say we know better what is right for every single worker,” Mr. Tanner said.

A representative of the National Women’s Law Center, Joan Entmacher, emphasized that a large number of Social Security recipients are not retirees, but disabled people and surviving spouses or children of workers who have died young. She worried that the proposed changes could cut benefits for those people in a variety of ways.

But a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Innovation, Peter Ferrara, argued that it is possible to guarantee the current level of benefits while still creating large personal accounts – and without large debt. Senators were not persuaded that Congress could pass the large cuts in government spending necessary to pay for his plan.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday suggested that public support for the president’s plan to divert Social Security taxes into private investment accounts had dropped – to 45% from 56% support in a March poll.

Mr. Grassley yesterday blamed the poll numbers on “demagoguery” by the plan’s opponents.