I believe there’s room for us to compromise

I think everybody in this country thinks that we’ve got to make sure our kids are equipped in terms of their education, their science background, their math backgrounds, to compete in this new global economy, and that’s going to be an area where I think there’s potential common ground.

So on a whole range of issues, there are going to be areas where we disagree.

I think the overwhelming message that I hear from the voters is that we want everybody to act responsibly in Washington.

We want you to work harder to arrive at consensus.

We want you to focus completely on jobs and the economy and growing it, so that we’re ensuring a better future for our children and our grandchildren, and I think that there’s no doubt that as I reflect on the results of the election, it underscores for me that I've got to do a better job, just like everybody else in Washington does.
 
Well, I think John Boehner and I and Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are going to have to sit down and work together, because I suspect that if you talk to any individual voter yesterday, they’d say, there are some things I agree with Democrats on, there are some things I agree with Republicans on.

I don’t think people carry around with them a fixed ideology.

I think the majority of people, they’re going about their business, going about their lives.

They just want to make sure that we’re making progress, and that’s going to be my top priority over the next couple of years.
 
I’m doing a whole lot of reflecting and I think that there are going to be areas in policy where we’re going to have to do a better job.

I think that over the last two years, we have made a series of very tough decisions, but decisions that were right in terms of moving the country forward in an emergency situation where we had the risk of slipping into a second Great Depression.
 
President Barack Obama said:
I’m doing a whole lot of reflecting and I think that there are going to be areas in policy where we’re going to have to do a better job.

I think that over the last two years, we have made a series of very tough decisions, but decisions that were right in terms of moving the country forward in an emergency situation where we had the risk of slipping into a second Great Depression.
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But what is absolutely true is that with all that stuff coming at folks fast and furious, a recovery package, what we had to do with respect to the banks, what we had to do with respect to the auto companies, I think people started looking at all this and it felt as if government was getting much more intrusive into people’s lives than they were accustomed to.
 
President Barack Obama said:
But what is absolutely true is that with all that stuff coming at folks fast and furious, a recovery package, what we had to do with respect to the banks, what we had to do with respect to the auto companies, I think people started looking at all this and it felt as if government was getting much more intrusive into people’s lives than they were accustomed to.
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In addition, there were a bunch of price tags that went with that.

And so, even though these were emergency situations, people rightly said, gosh, we already have all this debt, we already have these big deficits; this is potentially going to compound it, and at what point are we going to get back to a situation where we’re doing what families all around the country do, which is make sure that if you spend something you know how to pay for it, as opposed to racking up the credit card for the next generation.

I think that the other thing that happened is that when I won election in 2008, one of the reasons I think that people were excited about the campaign was the prospect that we would change how business is done in Washington, and we were in such a hurry to get things done that we didn’t change how things got done.

I think that frustrated people.
 
I’m a strong believer that the earmarking process in Congress isn’t what the American people really want to see when it comes to making tough decisions about how taxpayer dollars are spent.

And I, in the rush to get things done, had to sign a bunch of bills that had earmarks in them, which was contrary to what I had talked about.

I think folks look at that and they said, gosh, this feels like the same partisan squabbling, this seems like the same ways of doing business as happened before, and so one of the things that I’ve got to take responsibility for is not having moved enough on those fronts.

I think there is an opportunity to move forward on some of those issues.
 
The fact is, is that for most folks, proof of whether they work or not is has the economy gotten back to where it needs to be, and it hasn’t.

My job is to make sure that I’m looking at all ideas that are on the table.

When it comes to job creation, if Republicans have good ideas for job growth that can drive down the unemployment rate, and we haven’t thought of them, we haven’t looked at them but we think they have a chance of working, we want to try some.

So, on the policy front, I think the most important thing is to say that we’re not going to rule out ideas because they’re Democrat or Republican.

We want to just see what works, and ultimately, I’ll be judged as President as to the bottom line, results.
 
President Barack Obama said:
The fact is, is that for most folks, proof of whether they work or not is has the economy gotten back to where it needs to be, and it hasn’t.

My job is to make sure that I’m looking at all ideas that are on the table.

When it comes to job creation, if Republicans have good ideas for job growth that can drive down the unemployment rate, and we haven’t thought of them, we haven’t looked at them but we think they have a chance of working, we want to try some.

So, on the policy front, I think the most important thing is to say that we’re not going to rule out ideas because they’re Democrat or Republican.

We want to just see what works, and ultimately, I’ll be judged as President as to the bottom line, results.
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I think we’d be misreading the election if we thought that the American people want to see us for the next two years relitigate arguments that we had over the last two years.

With respect to the health care law, generally, you know, when I talk to a woman from New Hampshire who doesn’t have to mortgage her house because she got cancer and is seeking treatment but now is able to get health insurance, when I talk to parents who are relieved that their child with a preexisting condition can now stay on their policy until they’re 26 years old and give them time to transition to find a job that will give them health insurance, or the small businesses that are now taking advantage of the tax credits that are provided, then I say to myself, this was the right thing to do.
 
President Barack Obama said:
I think we’d be misreading the election if we thought that the American people want to see us for the next two years relitigate arguments that we had over the last two years.

With respect to the health care law, generally, you know, when I talk to a woman from New Hampshire who doesn’t have to mortgage her house because she got cancer and is seeking treatment but now is able to get health insurance, when I talk to parents who are relieved that their child with a preexisting condition can now stay on their policy until they’re 26 years old and give them time to transition to find a job that will give them health insurance, or the small businesses that are now taking advantage of the tax credits that are provided, then I say to myself, this was the right thing to do.
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Now, if the Republicans have ideas for how to improve our health care system, if they want to suggest modifications that would deliver faster and more effective reform to a health care system that has been wildly expensive for too many families and businesses and certainly for our federal government, I’m happy to consider some of those ideas.
 
President Barack Obama said:
Now, if the Republicans have ideas for how to improve our health care system, if they want to suggest modifications that would deliver faster and more effective reform to a health care system that has been wildly expensive for too many families and businesses and certainly for our federal government, I’m happy to consider some of those ideas.
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You know, for example, I know one of the things that’s come up is that the 1099 provision in the health care bill appears to be too burdensome for small businesses.

It just involves too much paperwork, too much filing.

It’s probably counterproductive.

It was designed to make sure that revenue was raised to help pay for some of the other provisions, but if it ends up just being so much trouble that small businesses find it difficult to manage, that's something that we should take a look at.

So there are going to be examples where I think we can tweak and make improvements on the progress that we’ve made.

That's true for any significant piece of legislation.
 
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