Douthat sums it up:
If Mitt Romney wins the White House, the Republican decision to postpone a bigger deal will look like wisdom. With Obama starting out a second term, though, more Boomers becoming Medicare and Social Security recipients every day, and $4 trillion in tax increases looming unless the president puts his signature on a tax deal, I’m not so sure that the overall conservative negotiating position will have been strengthened by a small-ball compromise in 2011. In the here and now, Republicans have (or had?) an opportunity to hedge their bets for 2013 while dividing the Democratic Party and getting a liberal president to sign off on entitlement cuts. They may get a better deal later, but it’s a gamble, not a certainty.
The Dish 