|
| President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Sasha, front left, and Malia, walk from Marine One to board Air Force One at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012, in Chicago, the day after the presidential election. Obama defeated Republican challenger former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- One day after a bruising, mixed-verdict election, President
Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner both pledged
Wednesday to seek a compromise to avert looming spending cuts and tax
increases that threaten to plunge the economy back into recession.
Added Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.: "Of course" an agreement is possible.
While
all three men spoke in general terms, Boehner stressed that Republicans
would be willing to accept higher tax revenue under the right
conditions as part of a more sweeping attempt to reduce deficits and
restore the economy to full health.
While the impending "fiscal cliff" dominates the postelection agenda, the president and Republicans have other concerns, too.
Obama
is looking ahead to top-level personnel changes in a second term,
involving three powerful Cabinet portfolios at a minimum.
And
Republicans are heading into a season of potentially painful reflection
after losing the presidency in an economy that might have proved
Obama's political undoing. They also have fallen deeper into the Senate
minority after the second election in a row in which they lost
potentially winnable races by fielding candidates with views that voters
evidently judged too extreme.
One major topic for GOP discussion: the changing face of America.
"We've
got to deal with the issue of immigration through good policy. What is
the right policy if we want economic growth in America as it relates to
immigration?" said former Republican Party Chairman Haley Barbour. Obama
drew support from about 70 percent of all Hispanics. That far outpaced
Romney, who said during the Republican primaries that illegal immigrants
should self-deport, then spent the general election campaign trying to
move toward the political middle on the issue.
The
maneuvering on the economy - the dominant issue by far in the campaign -
began even before Obama returned to the White House from his home town
of Chicago.
After securing a second term, the
president is committed to bipartisan solutions "to reduce our deficit in
a balanced way, cut taxes for middle class families and small
businesses and create jobs," and he told congressional leaders as much
in phone calls, the White House said.
Boehner,
whose anti-tax Republicans renewed their House majority on Tuesday,
said GOP legislators were "willing to accept new revenue under the right
conditions." That means tax reform and economic growth rather than
raising rates, he emphasized, and accompanying steps to rein in the
government's big benefit programs.
"The
question we should be asking is not `which taxes should I raise to get
more revenue, but rather: which reforms can we agree on that will get
our economy moving again?" the Ohio Republican said at the Capitol.
While
both the president and Boehner sent signals of bipartisanship, there
remain wide differences between the two on specifics. At the same time,
each man has something of a postelection mandate, given Obama's
re-election and the Republicans' successful defense of their House
majority.
The reference to a balanced approach
to deficit reduction reflected Obama's campaign-long call for higher
taxes on incomes above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for
couples.
That was something Boehner made plain he opposes.
Reid
told reporters that any solution should include higher taxes on "the
richest of the rich." That was in keeping with Obama's election
platform, which calls for the expiration of tax cuts on higher-income
earners.
Barring legislation to avoid the
"fiscal cliff" by year's end, taxes are on course to rise by more than
$500 billion in 2013, and spending is to be cut by an additional $130
billion or so, totals that would increase over a decade. The blend is
designed to rein in the federal debt, but officials in both parties warn
it poses a grave
threat to an economic recovery that has been halting
at best.
Obama and congressional leaders in
both parties say they want an alternative, but serious compromise talks
were non-existent during the fierce campaign season.
That
ended Tuesday in an election in which more than 119 million votes were
cast, mostly without controversy despite dire predictions of politically
charged recounts and lawsuits while the presidency hung in the balance.
Obama
won the popular vote narrowly, the electoral vote comfortably, and the
battleground states where the campaign was principally waged in a
landslide.
The president carried seven of the
nine states where he, Romney and their allies spent nearly $1 billion on
television commercials, winning Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Hampshire,
Nevada, Colorado and Virginia.
The Republican challenger won North Carolina, and Florida remained too close to call
Obama also turned back late moves by Republicans in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota.
Hispanics
account for a larger share of the population than the national average
in Nevada and Colorado, two of the closely contested battleground
states. The president's outsized majority among Hispanics - in the range
of 70 percent according to Election Day interviews with voters - helped
him against a challenger who called earlier in the year for
self-deportation of illegal immigrants.
Other factors in crucial states:
-
In Ohio, roughly 60 percent of all voters said they favored the Obama
administration's auto bailout, and the president captured nearly three
quarters of their votes, according to the survey, conducted for The
Associated Press and a group of television networks. He stressed the
rescue operation throughout the campaign. Romney opposed it, and in late
campaign commercials suggested it had contributed to the loss of U.S.
jobs overseas.
- In Virginia, the black vote was roughly half again as big in percentage terms as nationally, also an aid to Obama.
Changes
are in store for the victorious administration. The election past,
three members of Obama's Cabinet have announced plans to leave their
posts: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner
and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Other changes would not
be unusual in the second administration of any president.
As
for Congress, Democrats improbably gained seats in re-establishing
their Senate majority. Their final margin hinged on a decision by
independent Sen.-elect Angus King of Maine, who has not yet said which
party he will affiliate with.
There were nine
House races that remained too close to call, not counting a Louisiana
runoff next month that involves two Republicans. Overall, the GOP
secured 234 seats and led for one more, a trend that would translate
into a net loss of eight from the current lineup.
In
defeat, Democrats pointed to races where they turned tea party-backed
conservatives out of power as evidence they had stemmed a tide.
