The “fiscal cliff” end game… If there’s going to be a deal, Obama, Boehner, and Congress need to start the heavy lifting ASAP… Kristol vs. the Wall Street Journal on caving on the tax rates… Motoring! Obama delivers remarks at 2:00 pm ET at a Detroit Diesel plant in Redford, MI… And in Michigan, the president will set foot in the state featuring the nation’s latest labor battle… The hits keep on coming for Susan Rice… The upcoming immigration push… Hillary and 2016… And meet Markwayne Mullen.

*** The end game: We’ve told you that the last couple of weeks in Washington’s fiscal debate have mostly been about P.R. and posturing. Like a student in college or a reporter working in the news business, the real work in Congress typically doesn’t happen until there’s a real deadline that’s rapidly approaching. Well, we’ve now entered that deadline phase in the negotiations between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. If the plan is to get something passed by Friday, Dec. 21 (right before the Christmas holiday), then the legislation has to be written by Dec. 18. And that means that Obama and Boehner must reach an agreement by Dec. 14-15, if there’s going to be a deal. So the time for posturing and P.R. is over. This week, we’ve reached the phase where both sides will begin rolling up their sleeves to do the heavy negotiating. Both Obama and Boehner know this, which is why they did meet behind closed doors yesterday. The question now is: Will there be a BIG deal that includes serious entitlement hits in addition to major tax reform? Or will it be JUST taxes and a punt until the debt ceiling? There’s not much of an “in between” at this point.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, talks with reporters outside his office in the Capitol Dec. 7, 2012 in Washington, DC.

*** Kristol vs. the Wall Street Journal: In addition to yesterday’s news that the president and the speaker met, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) became the latest GOP lawmaker to suggest that Republicans acquiesce on raising tax rates on the wealthy to get entitlement cuts. And that’s a stance the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page today criticizes. “So it's a shame that Republicans are playing into Mr. Obama's hands, negotiating in public among themselves, prematurely giving up on the tax issue and undermining House Speaker John Boehner in the process. Mr. Obama isn't going to blink on the budget if he thinks Republicans are going to blink first, and so far the emerging GOP position seems to be to surrender on taxes first and hope Mr. Obama will have mercy on them later on entitlements.” But the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol hits back at the Journal. “Most Republicans will go along soon after January 1 with what will now be the Democrats' tax cutting agenda. If the House Republicans now follow the Wall Street Journal editors over the cliff, the only effect, I'm afraid, will be to turn a manageable tactical retreat in December into a panicked strategic rout in January.” There is good news for Boehner in all of this: The lack of consensus among conservatives gives Boehner more running room to cut the deal he thinks is best, rather than over-worrying about specific conservative constituencies. Remember, the House GOP leadership won’t say it publicly, but they’ve signaled privately that under the RIGHT circumstance, they’d go to the floor of the House with less than a majority of the majority.

*** Motoring! Your White House fiscal-cliff photo-op of the day takes place in Michigan, where the president delivers remarks at a Daimler Detroit Diesel plant at 2:00 pm ET in Redford. Per the Detroit Free Press, Daimler, which owns Detroit Diesel, is announcing “a new investment to expand U.S. production and jobs... The White House said the investment is expected to be $100 million or more and, with it, Daimler Trucks North America will become the first heavy-duty vehicle equipment manufacturer on the continent to build a fully integrated powertrain from on production facility.” So today’s even will be a mixture of the fiscal cliff and this Daimler news.

*** Michigan’s labor battle: Yet when Obama visits Michigan, he’ll be setting foot in the state featuring the nation’s latest labor battle. “With Michigan lawmakers poised Tuesday to give final passage of right-to-work legislation, unions and their supporters plan to mass outside the Capitol that day as part of a last-ditch bid to derail the fast-moving campaign to limit labor's power,” the Detroit News says. “If lawmakers reconcile the bills and pass a final version Tuesday — as expected — Gov. Rick Snyder has said he will sign it, making Michigan the 24th right-to-work state and dealing a major blow to organized labor in one of its traditional strongholds.” Out of all the new Republican governors who were elected in 2010, Michigan’s Rick Snyder was always viewed as the least ideological of the bunch. So when Scott Walker in Wisconsin, John Kasich in Ohio, or Rick Scott in Florida were pursuing controversial changes and legislation and confronting the labor movement, Snyder -- who calls himself “one tough nerd” -- stayed away from the ideological wars and focused on the economy. In fact, he even appeared to support Obama’s auto bailout. But now the Michigan governor finds himself knee deep in the same kind of controversy we saw in Wisconsin and Ohio. By the way, while we do expect Snyder to greet the president at the airport, don’t expect to see Snyder with the president at the Chrysler event because it’s taking place at a UAW facility.

*** Hits keep coming for Rice: It’s no longer Benghazi, or even the Keystone XL Pipeline. Critics of Susan Rice are now pointing to the Obama administration’s failure to intervene in the atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The New York Times: “Specifically, these critics — who include officials of human rights organizations and United Nations diplomats — say the administration has not put enough pressure on Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, to end his support for the rebel movement whose recent capture of the strategic city of Goma in Congo set off a national crisis in a country that has already lost more than three million people in more than a decade of fighting. Rwanda’s support is seen as vital to the rebel group, known as M23.” And the Times reports that Rice has been viewed as shielding Kagame. And then there’s a New York Times op-ed from journalist Salem Solomon, who accuses Rice of showing “a surprising and unsettling sympathy for Africa’s despots.” This is the problem for Rice as long as President Obama doesn’t officially appoint her (or John Kerry) to fill the secretary of state position: She’s dangling like a piñata for critics to whack, without an official campaign to defend her. But with the fiscal cliff taking up more and more time and this secretary of state issue becoming such a headache for the administration, there’s a very real chance the president doesn’t announce any new cabinet members until AFTER the new year.

*** The upcoming immigration push: Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Times noted that the Obama White House is preparing for a big push on comprehensive immigration reform after the “fiscal cliff” negotiations end. “Senior White House advisors plan to launch a social media blitz in January, and expect to tap the same organizations and unions that helped get a record number of Latino voters to reelect the president. Cabinet secretaries are preparing to make the case for how changes in immigration laws could benefit businesses, education, healthcare and public safety. Congressional committees could hold hearings on immigration legislation as soon as late January or early February.” More: “Democratic strategists believe there is only a narrow window at the beginning of the year to get an initiative launched in Congress, before lawmakers begin to turn their attention to the next election cycle and are less likely to take a risky vote on a controversial bill.”

*** Hillary and 2016: On Sunday, the New York Times ran a “Hillary 2016” story, and we all should prepare for these kind of stories once a month until she decides to run (or not) for president. “Right now, aides and friends say, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s plan looks like this: exit the State Department shortly after Inauguration Day and then seclude herself to rest and reflect on what she wants to do for the next few years. Those who have invited her for 2013 engagements have been told not to even ask again until April or May.” The Times does make this important point: If she does want to keep the presidential door open, her options are limited. “The more serious she is about 2016, the less she can do — no frank, seen-it-all memoir; no clients, commissions or controversial positions that could prove problematic. She will be under heavy scrutiny even by Clinton standards, discovering what it means to be a supposedly private citizen in the age of Twitter. With the election four years away — a political eon — she will have to tend and protect her popularity, and she may find herself in a cushy kind of limbo, unable to make many decisions about her life until she makes the big one about another White House try.”

*** Meet Markwayne Mullin: NBC’s Carrie Dann has profiled 10 new members to watch in the next Congress. Today’s profile: Markwayne Mullen. When his father's illness forced Mullin to quit college and take over the family plumbing business, the 20-year-old and his wife turned a flailing enterprise into a small eastern Oklahoma empire. Mullin, now 35, won the House seat vacated by retiring Rep. Dan Boren, running under the banner "A rancher. A businessman. Not a politician!" The Tulsa native -- a social conservative who vehemently opposes "amnesty" proposals -- has promised to take a no-frills attitude to the halls of Congress. Casually dressed on election night, he joked with supporters that he defied his campaign staff's request that he wear a suit to deliver his victory speech. "They got me this far, and boots are going to take me all the way there and bring me all the way back" from Washington, he said.

Click here to sign up for First Read emails.
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter. Follow us @chucktodd, @mmurraypolitics, @DomenicoNBC, @brookebrower

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, emerged Friday to say that "no progress" had been made on resolving the impending "fiscal cliff."

Capitol Hill's top Republican said that talks with President Barack Obama toward resolving the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled for the beginning of next year continued to stall; Boehner renewed his demand that Obama submit a new plan for evaluation by lawmakers.

"This isn't a progress report because there's no progress to report," the speaker said at a brief press conference Friday morning on Capitol Hill.

The issue of taxes continues to ensnare negotiations on the fiscal cliff. The Obama administration has demanded that income tax rates be increased for the wealthiest Americans; Republicans made a counter-offer earlier this week that would raise revenue by closing loopholes and deductions, but would also preserve existing tax rates, all of which are set to expire at the end of this year unless Congress acts.

"It's time for the president, if he's serious, to come back to us with a counter-offer," said Boehner, asking at a later point: "When is he [Obama] going to take a step toward us?"

The president rejected the Republican plan as unbalanced because it allowed for no increase in income tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, a priority on which Obama campaigned for re-election this fall. His original proposal, presented last week to lawmakers by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, called for increased rates. What Republicans are now demanding is a new version of Obama's plan.

At the same time, Boehner is facing countervailing pressures among rank-and-file Republicans over his management of the impending fiscal cliff. Some conservatives have complained that the GOP leadership's offer to collect new revenue constitutes a betrayal of the low-taxes philosophy which has long characterized the modern Republican Party. At the same time, some Republicans have called for the extension of tax rates for most Americans so as to prevent the political impact of a tax increase for middle class families on Jan. 1, if a deal cannot be reached.

President Barack Obama said that a deal to avert the fiscal cliff would not happen without higher income tax rates on the top two percent of earners in his first TV interview since his re-election.

"If we're going to raise revenues that are sufficient to balance with the very tough cuts that we've already made and the further reforms in entitlements that I’m prepared to make, then we’re going to have to see the rates on the top two percent go up," the president told Bloomberg television.

"And we're not going to be able to get a deal without it," he continued. "It's not me being stubborn -- it's not me being partisan. It’s just a matter of math."

He said that getting Republicans to agree to higher tax rates was more urgent than meeting with House Speaker John Boehner to hammer out the rest of the details of the plan.

"I don’t think that the issue right now has to do with sitting in a room," he said.

Boehner led Republicans in offering a counter-proposal to Obama's own fiscal plan; the GOP proposal called for $800 billion in new revenue due to closing loopholes and deductions, though it would not increase tax rates on any Americans.

"Unfortunately the speaker's proposal right now is still out of balance," Obama said of Boehner's plan.

As Republicans and the White House continue to jostle over the "fiscal cliff," the public remains pessimistic about a solution and is largely prepared to blame the GOP if no agreement is reached.

A new poll from the Pew Research Center and the Washington Post shows that only four in 10 adults believe that the two sides will hammer out an agreement to dodge the fiscal cliff by its Jan. 1 deadline, while nearly half (49 percent) believe no deal will get done in time.

What's more -- in a trend surely being eyed by the Obama administration -- the public still appears ready to place blame for the impasse on congressional Republicans over the White House by a nearly 2-1 margin.

With a divide similar to public perceptions earlier in November, 53 percent of those surveyed said they would point the finger at the GOP for the failure of the negotiations, while just 27 percent say the president would be at fault.

While Democrats surveyed are far more optimistic than Republicans about an agreement (by 55 to 22 percent), all partisan groups appear uncertain about exactly what the consequences of the cliff's automatic spending cuts and tax increases could be. Only about a third of adults overall say they understand the effects of the fiscal cliff "very well," but over 60 percent say those effects will have a "major effect" on the US economy. But not as many respondents think that a tumble over the cliff will dramatically affect their own lives, with 43 percent saying the cuts and taxes would have a "major effect" on their personal finances and 35 percent labeling the consequences "minor" in their own lives.

Yuri Gripas / Reuters

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) speaks during a GOP news conference on the "fiscal cliff", on Capitol Hill in Washington, November 28, 2012.

The survey was conducted between Nov. 28 and Dec. 2 among 1,003 adults. It has a 3.7 percent margin of error among its overall sample of adults.

Bully pulpit, make way for the bully hashtag.

In his latest social media push to get support for his fiscal cliff plan, President Barack Obama participated in a brief Twitter question-and-answer session, alternately defending his position on taxes and addressing concerns over losing favorite tax deductions in the course of fiscal cliff negotiations. 

Among the thousands of submissions using the keyword, or hashtag, “My2K” (the amount the administration says most people would have to pay if their Bush-era tax cuts expired), the president picked eight tweets, most of which seemed chosen to reinforce a key part of his plan.

“What is your opposition to taking away deductions for the 2% rather than up the rate? Seems like a reasonable compromise,” user @huntertred tweeted referring to Republicans offer to close loopholes instead of raising rates, as opposed to the White House’s plan to do both, while keeping some of the most popular and wide-ranging deductions intact.

“@huntertred not enough revenue, unless you end charitable deductions, etc. less revenue=more cuts in education etc,” Obama responded, linking to a blog post from his top economic advisers titled, “Limiting Tax Deductions: The Reality of the Math.”

The president, tweeting at the official @WhiteHouse handle, also warned about threats to some of those popular tax cuts, including the mortgage interest deduction,  that he said might meet the chopping block if Republicans held the line on keeping tax rates low for the wealthiest.

“Breaks for middle class impt for families & econ. if top rates don't go up, danger that middle class deductions get hit,” the president warned @soitgoesem.

He also told @pmmckenzie that any reforms to social programs like Medicare and Medicaid would not affect those who most needed financial help.

“We can reduce deficit in balanced way by ending tax cuts for top 2% + reforms that strengthen safety net & invest in future,” he responded to the question, which asked for assurance that entitlement reform would not hurt the neediest.

While the president did answer eight questions, he really answered seven on the fiscal cliff, as the last one veered off topic to which Chicago sports team would “win it all” first.

“.@Mica4Lifeda bears still gotta shot, despite sad loss this weekend! plus rose will return for playoffs!!! -bo” came the response.

Updated 4:50 p.m. ET -- Republicans offered up their own proposal to avert the impending “fiscal cliff” on Monday amid Democratic demands that the GOP match the Obama administration’s plan with one of their own.

In a letter to President Barack Obama, House Republican leaders outlined the contours of a deal they said would achieve a net savings of $2.2 trillion. The plan, which is based on fiscal commission Democratic co-chairman Erskine Bowles’s proposal to the super committee, would achieve these savings through revenue from tax reforms, health savings and discretionary spending cuts.

Recommended: Income tax rates just one piece of Obama proposal

"Going over the cliff will hurt our economy and hurt job creation in our country. It’s one of the reasons the day after the election I offered a concession to try and speed this process up. Unfortunately, the White House responded with their ‘La-La-Land’ offer that couldn't pass the House or Senate and was basically the president’s budget from last February," House Speaker John Boehner told reporters on Capitol Hill at a briefing detailing the plan.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Speaker John Boehner speaks during a news conference, Nov. 30, 2012, on Capitol Hill.

"We could have responded in kind, but we decided not to do that. What we’re putting forth is a credible plan that deserves serious consideration by the White House and I would hope that they would respond in a timely and responsible way," the Ohio Republican added.

Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said the plan "does not meet the test of balance."

"Their plan includes nothing new and provides no details on which deductions they would eliminate, which loopholes they will close or which Medicare savings they would achieve," he said. "While the president is willing to compromise to get a significant, balanced deal and believes that compromise is readily available to Congress, he is not willing to compromise on the principles of fairness and balance that include asking the wealthiest to pay higher rates ... Until the Republicans in Congress are willing to get serious about asking the wealthiest to pay slightly higher tax rates, we won't be able to achieve a significant, balanced approach to reduce our deficit our nation needs."  

The counter-offer coincides with Democratic demands that Republicans produce their own proposal to match the deal offered last week by the administration. That plan, presented to Republicans by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, called for $1.6 trillion in new revenues, savings from entitlement programs and new spending on unemployment insurance and investment projects. GOP leaders rejected the plan out-of-hand.

Still, the GOP proposal on Monday appears to move no further toward compromise on Obama’s central demand that tax rates be allowed to increase on the wealthiest Americans. While Republicans have agreed in principle that richer Americans can shoulder a greater share of the tax burden, they insist this must be achieved through ending loopholes and deductions, rather than raising rates.

The Republican plan, which is also backed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., achieves its $2.2 trillion in several steps.

As Republicans put it, they would raise $800 billion in new revenue through tax reform, $600 billion in health savings, $200 billion from changes to the Consumer Price Index, $300 billion in discretionary spending cuts, and another $300 billion in savings in mandatory spending. Many of the health savings track closely with the changes to Medicare first proposed in Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s budgets.

Republicans say the plan, using the Obama administration’s math, would achieve $4.6 trillion in savings.

It’s unclear, though, whether the Republican plan would move toward ending the stalemate around the fiscal cliff negotiations, with less than a month remaining until the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts are scheduled to snap into place on Jan. 1.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pummeled his GOP colleagues earlier Monday afternoon, arguing that their failure to produce a counter-offer would only exacerbate the situation.

The new GOP plan reflects the posturing that has come to characterize these negotiations, separated just a month from an election which awarded Obama a second term and which kept Republicans in control of the House and Democrats in control of the Senate.

Also on Monday, the president continued his messaging offensive on Monday with a glossy campaign-style video highlighting the cost to families if the 2001 Bush-era tax cuts were allowed to expire at the end of this month. (Obama has argued they should be extended for all but the wealthiest 2 percent of U.S. households.)

Benjamin Myers / Reuters

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner arrives at Capitol Building before a meeting with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in Washington, D.C., Nov. 29, 2012.

The president also took to Twitter to make the case for his own plan, answering questioners who used the informal 140-character medium to ask about the fiscal cliff negotiations.

Asked by one participant why he insists on increasing rates on the top 2 percent of earners rather than limiting deductions in order to raise revenues, the president replied that capping deductions alone would not raise adequate revenue. 

"Not enough revenue, unless you end charitable deductions, etc. [L]ess revenue=more cuts in education," he wrote.

The president also dismissed the GOP notion that lower taxes for the very wealthy have a trickle-down effect in terms of new hires and a larger tax pool. "High end tax cuts do least for economic growth & cost almost $1T," he wrote. "Extending middle class cuts boosts consumer demand & growth"

Obama also argued that his administration cut spending by $1 trillion last year and that he is open to further "smart cuts" as long as they don't affect education or job growth.

NBC's Frank Thorp contributed to this report.

NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro discuss what a possible Fiscal Cliff deal might look like and what all of the players have at stake.

Thanks to Frank "Grimey" Grimes for the question!

Video edited by NBC's Jordan Frasier.

TRANSCRIPT:

DOMENICO MONTANARO: I'm Domenico Montanaro, with another edition of Inside the Boiler Room here with Mark Murray inside our 'boiler room' I guess. It used to look a lot more like a boiler room when we did these more low budget but anyway we have two questions, we are going to combine them from DaNoid and Frank "Grimey" Grimes. DaNoid asks: "If there is a deal to be made to avoid the "Fiscal Cliff", what should we ultimately expect to see from that deal, who has to give more towards making the deal, Democrats or Republicans, and when should we expect to see a deal?" Frank "grimey" Grimes, always a prolific question asker says, "Who stands to gain or lose the most (from a political perspective," and we always like the political perspective, "in the upcoming negotiations on the "fiscal cliff"?

MARK MURRAY: Wow those are some really great questions. I do think we see the broad outlines of what the deal might end up looking like to answer DaNoid's question. It is going to involve either higher tax rates or more revenue or actually a combination of the two which you probably are going to get to see at the end of the day. The Obama White House is basically saying, and Democrats, rates are going to have to go up. These Bush tax cuts are going to have to be gone for good, and the question is maybe they are eliminated but there is something you end up getting in the longer term with some sort of tax reform, or maybe the White House ends up saying, 'Look, you know, the Bush tax cuts on capital gains have to go up but on income they dont.' There are a lot of ways you can negotiate it but it seems to be, the deal is going to be taxes or tax revenues or tax rates have to go up and that Democrats are going to have to give a little on entitlements. Right now we are in this negotiating stage of who is putting out the offers as kind of a wait-and-see approach. As far as when we actually might end up getting a deal, a really smart Democrat said to me expect around the middle of December and that is particularly why you are getting closer to the deadline you usually end up getting these deals right now but don't expect anything for the next couple of weeks.

DOMENICO MONTANARO: Yeah, I agree that there wouldn't be probably something for the next couple of weeks. I do think that it comes down to this idea that we've said that everybody agrees they need to raise some money from the rich but they don't know how, if it is going to be revenue or tax rates. Then the other side of the ledger is what do Democrats give on Medicare? It seems to be that the phrase "means testing" has become popular. You heard (Rep.) Jim Clyburn say it, the assistant leader, you've heard Republicans talk about it. So we will see what they can do, if there is something small on Medicare they would end up doing or something a little bit bigger. I would lean toward something smaller.

MARK MURRAY: And then to answer Grimey's question on who has the most to lose, probably I would think the answeris Washington and actually the governance. Both President Obama and House Republicans, they all ended up winning re-election, so they have plenty of time before- you know President Obama is not going to run again, House Republicans have two more years. You can make the argument that if this thing turns into a huge problem that somehow all of these sides can actually repair their reputations, which is possible. But after the debt ceiling fight, it almost seems as if Washington at large--I think people are looking to see if it actually--if people can make the tough decisions, make compromises to actually give faith that you know what, when the chips are down political leaders can actually come together. We saw that after Hurricane Sandy where Chris Christie was there with President Obama. I think people are looking to see if there can be a deal where John Boehner and Barack Obama, Mitch McConnell are all together and they can cut some type of deal.

DOMENICO MONTANARO: Well Chris Christie wasn't without criticism from the right, and you are going to hear all those kind of disparate voices from the fringes on both sides who aren't happy with whatever deal might wind up being struck. The thing is, I think Democrats start out with an advantage on this. Polling is showing that if there is no deal people will blame Republicans. But it's all about perception. As the negotiations continue, who does it appear to be that is more willing to work with the other side, versus the side that looks like they are more entrenched in their position. That perception over the next few weeks is really going to determine who wins or who loses politically if there is no deal, but I think at the end of the day everyone was hurt in the debt ceiling fight, everyone will be hurt if something isn't done with this "fiscal cliff".

MARK MURRAY: That is a great answer and great questions from DaNoid and Grimey!

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, finishes a prepared statement to reporters about the elections and the unfinished business of Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, emerged in the aftermath of Tuesday’s presidential election to strike a conciliatory note, offering to work with President Barack Obama on a grand bargain to avert the impact of the coming fiscal cliff.

The top House Republican argued for new negotiations with Democrats and the newly re-elected Obama administration on an overarching fiscal deal linking together reforms to entitlements and the tax code.

Boehner said that Republicans would be “willing to accept new revenue, under the right conditions,” though those very conditions could be as beguiling as ever.

The speaker offered no clue as to whether Republicans would relent from their insistence (made during fiscal negotiations last year) that any sort of tax reform package not constitute anything even remotely resembling a tax hike.

Obama has spoken favorably about tax reform – including during his victory speech last night in Chicago – but in such a way that wealthier Americans would face the increased tax burden.

Resolving that very open question could prove the key to resolving – or exacerbating – the fiscal impasse that has plagued Washington for the better part of the last two years.

Romney never overcame bailout opposition

“Shoring up entitlements and reforming the tax code – closing special interest loopholes and deductions, and moving to a fairer, simpler system – will bring jobs home and result in a stronger, healthier economy,” Boehner said during a Wednesday afternoon statement on Capitol Hill.

By the same token, the speaker suggested that a deal was untenable during the coming lame-duck Congress, calling for a “down payment” on fiscal reform that would give both parties ample space to negotiate in early 2013.

Full national election results

Boehner’s words reflected the immediacy of the challenge before lawmakers in the coming weeks if they are to successfully avoid the “fiscal cliff,” the nickname for the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to spring into place at the beginning of next year.

Economists have warned that this combination, the byproduct of legislative gridlock on issues of tax and spending during the last two years, would imperil the economic recovery in the U.S.

The election on Tuesday maintained Republican control of the House, Democratic control of the Senate and, Obama’s control of the White House – the same basic makeup of government that produced gridlock on fiscal issues for the past two years.

The White House said Wednesday that Obama, just hours after securing re-election, phoned leaders of both parties in the House and the Senate. During those call, the president “reiterated his commitment to finding bipartisan solutions to: reduce our deficit in a balanced way, cut taxes for middle class families and small businesses and create jobs.”

But as Boehner called for more time to address the looming fiscal crisis, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggested he was disinclined to extend the timeline for reaching a deal.

“I’m not for kicking the can down the road. I think we’ve done that far too much,” he said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “Waiting for a month, six weeks, six months – that’s not going to solve the problem. We know what needs to be done, so I think we should just roll up our sleeves and get it done.”

First Thoughts: Obama's demographic edge

The dueling statements, though, set the parameters for fiscal talks that are set to dominate political discourse in the coming months.

The fight plays out amid election results that, as Vice President Joe Biden asserted on Wednesday, provided the administration with a “clear sort of mandate about people coming much closer to our view about how to deal with tax policy.”

Almost two-thirds of voters, according to national exit polls, said “no” when asked whether taxes should be raised to help cut the budget deficit. But 47 percent of voters, a plurality, said that taxes should increase only on those earning more than $250,000 – a centerpiece of Obama’s re-election campaign on which Obama stumped this fall.

Barring any action by Congress, tax rates would spring upward for all income brackets as the 2001 Bush-era tax cuts, which were extended for two years in 2009, expired.

The spending “sequester,” established by Congress during the 2011 debt ceiling deal as an incentive for lawmakers to reach a compromise budgetary solution, is also set to take effect at the beginning of next year absent an agreement by Congress. Republicans have grown especially worrisome about the sequester because of the heavy cuts it would make to the defense budget.

As the business of legislating resumes, a key actor in the process could be Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the former Republican vice presidential nominee who lost Tuesday as Mitt Romney’s running mate. Ryan simultaneously won re-election to Congress, and said Wednesday in a statement that he intends to resume his post as chairman of the House Budget Committee.