President Obama has just won reelection but with smaller Electoral College and popular vote margins then he did in 2008. At the same time, Republicans look like they will maintain control of the House. Both parties can claim some mandate from yesterday’s election, although Obama clearly won the bigger victory.

Normally the White House would have some time to lay out a second term agenda. But this is not a normal election. The U.S. economy is staring down the barrel of a “fiscal cliff” in the form of almost $500 billion in scheduled tax hikes and another $100 billion in spending cuts in just 2013 alone. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that letting these tax hikes and spending cuts take effect would trigger a double-dip recession and send unemployment above 9 percent. No one wants this to happen.