Will Obama's victory change Washington?

President Barack Obama will not have much time to savor his re-election, as serious challenges abound, such as the fiscal cliff that could derail the economic recovery.

Moreover, the Republicans can continue to obstruct Obama from the House of Representatives, where they retain control.
 
Many voters are justifiably cynical that much if anything will change in Washington, D.C., even though both parties have vowed to work together to solve the serious issues affecting the economy. It's no wonder the stock market has plunged in the first trading day after the election.

"After $6 billion+ spent on campaign b.s. we are back where we started: Republicans control the House and Democrats control the Senate and the White House," wrote reader Shawn L. on the MSN Money Facebook page last night. "Welcome to 4 more years of getting nothing done in Washington."

Another reader, Karla L., questioned whether the "Republican House will acknowledge or accept that Obama won."

That's a fair point. But if there is one lesson that can be drawn from the 2012 presidential election, it's that the nation may not be as divided as many people think. Obama's victory, though not a landslide, was certainly decisive. The former community organizer had bigger victories in both the electoral college and the popular vote than John F. Kennedy (1960), Richard Nixon (1968), Jimmy Carter (1976) and George W.  Bush (2000), according to The Nation. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), however, can also point to the fact that voters decided to keep the GOP in control of the House as evidence that voters are not enthused about Democrats' efforts to raise taxes on the wealthy and to carry out health care reform. 

"The result is that gridlock will continue, that businesses and consumers will have to cope with a great deal of uncertainty in terms of the availability of essential government services, the level of taxes they will be expected to pay and even whether or not their government will default on its debt obligations," Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, wrote in an email.

Fitch Ratings on Wednesday warned the U.S. government that it faces a credit downgrade unless Congress and the White House address spending cuts and tax increases that would likely send the economy back into a recession. Then there's the pesky issue of the debt ceiling, which enables the government to borrow money from China and other sources to fund its daily operations. Arguments over the debt ceiling almost led to the U.S. government's defaulting on its obligations for the first time in its history. 

"Unfortunately, gridlock is no longer an option," Nigel Gault, a chief economist at IHS Global Insight, said in an interview. "Will the Republicans in Congress continue to oppose any policy that includes an increase in taxes?"

Gault expects that attitude to change, given the results of the election.  They have little choice.

It seems likely that Obama and the Republicans will come to a temporary agreement on the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling before the end of the year and push off a grand bargain until the new Congress convenes in 2013.

Follow Jonathan Berr on Twitter@jdberr.