Ross Douthat thinks they might be a thing of the past. For all the talk of Republican intransigence, I think that Paul Ryan and Alice Rivlin could get together to craft a left/right compromise - even one that includes higher taxes than anything Ryan has proposed. The problem is that Alice Rivlin isn’t in the White House and isn’t in the Democratic congressional leadership. the Democratic leadership probably also believes that their policy preferences will prevail in the end so there is no reason to compromise on structural issues (as distinct from short-term spending levels.)
