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Republicans, Democrats to adjust extreme positions

Dunya News

Both Democrats and Republicans will be tested by the immediate need for moderation.

The US political landscape changed little with Tuesdays election, and now both Democrats and Republicans will be tested by the immediate need for moderation if they are to reach an agreement to avoid the feared fiscal cliff of automatic tax increases and deep spending cuts that could send the country into a recession.The Republican Party is entering a period of introspection after failing to block President Barack Obama from a second White House term, even after a period of the worst financial pain for middle-class Americans since the Great Depression of the 1930.The election was evidence that the majority of voters are no longer willing to accept the leadership of a Republican Party that has been pushed to the far right of the political spectrum by its small-government, low-tax tea party faction.But Obama and his Democrats also must be ready for compromise, with Americans yearning to see an end to the deep partisan divide and legislative gridlock that has gripped Washington in recent years.Obama, who campaigned on a pledge to raise taxes on American households earning more than $250,000 a year, was quiet Wednesday but returned to the White House from Chicago, where he held his victory celebration.He spoke by phone with the four top leaders of the House and Senate to talk about the lame-duck Congress that convenes just one week after Election Day. Little major action is expected.Obama told the congressional leaders he believed the American people sent a message in yesterdays election that leaders in both parties need to put aside their partisan interests and work with common purpose to put the interests of the American people and the American economy first, the White House said in a statement.The immediate challenge for both parties is the fiscal cliff of across-the-board spending cuts and the end of Bush-era tax cuts that would hit at the beginning of 2013 and cost $800 billion in that year alone. That could upend the slow economic recovery from the Great Recession and the near meltdown of the financial system that Obama was left to repair when he took office four years ago.On the day after the election, Republicans signaled little readiness to give up their ideological opposition to raising taxes on high-income Americans, as Obama has insisted.Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner said Republicans are willing to consider some form of higher tax revenue as part of the solution but only under the right conditions.Republicans continue to push for lower rates across the board. That theory, known as trickle-down economics and dating to the era of President Ronald Reagan, holds that cutting taxes will vastly increase the size of the income and profit pie, thereby producing more government revenue even at lower tax rates.Boehner expressed that position yet again as the condition for working for any increase in government revenue in return for Obamas stated but undefined willingness to cut spending on crucial social programs.Republicans still control of the House, leaving Boehner able to block legislation from Obamas White House and the Democratic-controlled Senate.There appears no quick solution ahead to the countrys skyrocketing debt and stubbornly high deficit that has the government now spending more than $1 trillion a year more than it collects in taxes.Wall Street has one of its worst days of the year Wednesday as traders worried about the fiscal cliff and worsening news on the recession In Europe.Obamas victory and exit polling of voters showed a majority of Americans supported, or were resigned to, higher taxes to begin cutting the national debt, even as unemployment remains slightly below 8 percent.Republicans could still moderate as they face the reality of the countrys slow shift from a white majority to a day when minorities blacks, Hispanics and Asians become the majority. Obamas second-term victory was sealed by massive minority support.Vice President Joe Biden, flying home from Chicago, told reporters that he predicted the fever will break on past legislative gridlock after some soul-searching by Republicans.