We last left the subject of budget and entitlement reform in 2006 (here and here) amid muted congressional response to bids by OMB Director Rob Portman and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to discuss concrete solutions. But the 2007 cycle of the long-term fiscal policy and entitlement reform merry-go-round opened with a bang yesterday, as Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) and ranking member Judd Gregg (R-NH) announced the goal of forming a bipartsan group to look at procedural and substantive ways to address the nation's long-term fiscal challenges, chiefly, the cost of providing benefits to the roughly 80 million baby boomers who are beginning to retire. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also called for a bipartisan approach to overhauling Social Security and Medicare. But he poo-pooed the notion that divided government is a more favorable environment for reform, noting in choice words that President Bush persists in calling for personal accounts as part of Social Security reform, saying, in an interview with Congress Daily: "There's no chance this will happen in the foreseeable future. He couldn't do it when they had the majority. How in the world does he expect to do that in the minority? It's as if he wants to fail. "Maybe it means something to him to stand on his principles no matter how flawed they are."