Washington ? President Bush plans to overhaul his economic team for the second time in two years and wants to tap prominent figures outside the administration to help sell rewrites of Social Security and the tax laws to Congress and the country, White House aides and advisers said over the weekend.

The aides said the replacement of four of the five top economic officials — including the treasury and commerce secretaries, with only budget director Joshua Bolten likely to remain — is part of Bush’s preparation for sending Congress an ambitious second-term domestic agenda.

Administration officials had previously signaled they would move gradually to replace the economic team, but the White House is now indicating it may move more quickly to convey a fresh start. Aides also indicated Bush is considering reaching beyond the kind of administration loyalists who will staff key national security posts in the second term.

Republican officials said Bush’s economic team had been weaker than his national security advisers, and that the president believed he needed aides who could relate better to Congress and be more effective in dealing with financial markets and television interviewers. A more skilled team is essential, the aides said, because of the complex and politically challenging agenda of overhauling Social Security to add private investment accounts and simplifying the tax code.

“The president knows that he doesn’t have the strength in that stable, and he’s going to another corral to find it,” said a member of Bush’s political team who refused to be named because it is not his job to talk to reporters.

One senior administration official said Treasury Secretary John Snow has been invited to stay as long as he wants to, as long as it is not very long. Friends say Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. is one possibility to replace him. Bolten, the budget director, also could move over.

But Republican officials said Bush also was considering well-known officials from outside the administration, including New York Gov. George Pataki. Conservatives are pushing for former Sen. Phil Gramm, a Republican from Texas.

Also under consideration is John J. Mack, who stepped down in June as co-chief executive of Credit Suisse First Boston. Mack, the son of a Lebanese-American grocer, is a former bond trader known as “Mack the Knife” and was reported at the time of his departure to be worth $200 million.

Economic adviser Stephen Friedman announced last week that he was leaving. Friends say that was because it became clear to him that he would not be named treasury secretary. N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, also is expected to depart, officials said.

Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, who announced shortly after the election that he would leave at the end of January, was to be replaced by Cincinnati businessman Mercer Reynolds, who was partners with Bush in the Texas Ranger baseball team and was finance chairman of his re-election campaign. But Bush advisers said Reynolds was no longer the front-runner and said the White House hoped to nominate another business executive.