Top Republicans ready to talk tax compromise with President Obama after reelection

A day after his reelection triumph, President Obama returned to Washington on Wednesday to find top Republicans suddenly offering olive branches and talking about compromise.

House Speaker John Boehner said Republicans would be willing to accept higher tax revenue under the right conditions as part of a more sweeping plan to reduce deficits and boost the economy.

The note of reconciliation after the bitter campaign represented a tentative first step toward preventing the government from falling off the fiscal cliff at the end of the year.

“Mr. President, this is your moment,” Boehner said at the Capitol. “We’re ready to lead, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans.”

Facing down the government’s financial problems is at the top of the to-do list for the President and Congress after the long and bitter campaign.

Under legislation passed last year, most tax rates automatically will jump and government spending automatically will be slashed — inflicting massive pain on most Americans — unless Congress can find common ground on taming the nation’s staggering deficit by the end of 2012.

The maneuvering began even before Obama returned to the White House from his victory night celebration in Chicago.

The White House said the President called congressional leaders to pledge bipartisan solutions “to reduce our deficit in a balanced way, cut taxes for middle class families and small businesses and create jobs.”

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.

The President and lawmakers were getting back to the nation’s business Wednesday even as some ballots were still being counted — a product of polling station glitches and long lines that kept voters held up for hours.

Thanks to a finely tuned ground game and historic levels of support from Latinos and African-Americans, Obama held on to all but two of the states he captured in 2008, losing only Indiana and North Carolina.

The Tar Heel State was also the only battleground where the President was defeated, as Obama edged out victories in hotly contested swing states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Virginia.

Florida was still too close to call, even though all of the ballots cast Tuesday had been counted. Obama had a margin of 47,028 votes before absentee ballots were tabulated.

Without Florida, Obama’s margin in the electoral college stood at 303-206, a larger margin of victory than most pundits predicted. His lead in the national popular vote stood at 50%-48%.

That split was reflected in Congress. Democrats picked up two seats in the Senate, giving them a 53-45 lead with two independents. Both normally vote with the Democrats.