What Obama’s win means for you.
Expect president to push aggressively for changes
WASHINGTON – So what will Obama II mean for Florida? Expect a renewed and aggressive push for changes that profoundly affect millions of Floridians, from implementing the new federal health care law to helping underwater homeowners adjust their mortgages to avoid foreclosure.
The president- re- elect is also expected to keep pouring more money into Everglades restoration, seek legal status for illegal immigrants and maintain looser rules on travel to Cuba.
Barack Obama’s election victory on Tuesday, though far from a landslide, strengthens his political hand. But in his second term, he’ll still face a sharply divided Congress and Republican leaders determined to block much of his agenda.
Look for him to forcefully claim a mandate to govern, say observers, something he didn’t do in 2008 as he sought cooperation with Republican lawmakers.
“He has to seize the initiative really quickly. I mean within a week. If he doesn’t, he’s going to have problems,” said Richard Semiatin, a political scientist at American University inWashington. “He can’t wait for Congress to come back. He has to be proactive almost immediately.”
Here are issues of special concern to Florida that the president and Congress must or likely will confront:
Florida, retirement dependent on these big programs, and Obama has acknowledged they must be changed to keep them solvent.
“It’s going to require all of us to work together and tell the American people just how serious the current crisis is,” said U. S Rep. Alcee Hastings, D- Miramar. “Medicare in its current form is unsustainable. The same goes with Social Security.”
The issue could come up as early as this month when Obama and congressional leaders explore ways to avoid falling off the “fiscal cliff.” That’sWashington shorthand for a draconian set of tax hikes and spending cuts that kick in at the end of the year unless the president and Congress agree on a betterway to reduce the federal deficit.
Cutting Medicare spending is one option thatmay be thrown on the bargaining table, as is raising taxes on the rich.
Hastings said the eligibility age for Medicaremay need to be raised beyond65 to keep the program solvent. Other options also require painful choices, such as raising payroll taxes or trimming future benefits.
A likely first step: setting up a commission to recommend solutions.
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Some economists think a more predictable playing field — with the lineup of Washington leaders and the health care law now firmly in place — will prompt consumers to spend and businesses to invest, which would spark economic growth. If so, Florida’s job market should improve, providing more opportunities for job seekers.
“The election alone will clear away some of the uncertainties,” said Sean Snaith, an economist at the University of Central Florida.
He predicts a gradual expansion of jobs through next year and something akin to the rapid- paced growth that Florida experienced in recent decades resuming in 2014- 15.
Obama’s re- election, along with a landmark U. S. Supreme Court decision in June, ensures that thenewhealth care law will remain the lawof the land.
Tuesday’s election results put renewed pressure on Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Legislature to set up exchanges to help Florida consumers make the best deal for buying health insurance and to also expand Medicaid —- mostly at federal expense — to cover roughly a million uninsured Floridians.
Scott so far has refused, but some in the Florida Legislature will press to broaden Medicaid and create the state- run exchanges rather than turn the task over to Uncle Sam.
Obama has promised to expand programs that encourage lenders to modify mortgages paid by homeowners who owe more than their homes are now worth. Plans are still vague, but the goal is to simplify the process and make more homeowners eligible for loan modifications.
Hispanic voters in Florida and elsewhere helped Obama get re- elected, and he has promised to press Congress to overhaul U. S. immigration law to give illegal immigrants legal status and a path to citizenship. This really matters in Florida, home to 850,000 illegal residents.
Obama’s attempts to reach a compromise with Republicans that could pass through Congress went nowhere during his first term, so to fulfill his campaign promise the president is obligated to try harder in a second term.
“I think the formula he’ll come up with would grandfather in [ undocumented] peoplewhohave been heremore than five or 10 years,” Semiatin said.
Despite tight budgets, the Obama administration has consistently called for big spending on a massive re- plumbing of the Everglades to preserve South Florida’s environment, wildlife and fresh water supplies. Congress respondedwith$ 1.5 billion of spendingonrelated projects since2009.
Members of both parties have cooperated, but an Obama defeat could have squeezed Everglades spending under a more tight- fisted Republican administration.
Obama’s victory also blocksRepublican attempts to scale back recent federal rules and standards designed to cleanse Florida’s streams and canals of pollution.
In his first term, Obama loosened rules to allow Cuban- Americans and those on educational or religious missions to visit Cuba. Opponents of the long- standing embargo on trade with Cuba are pressing for even more loosening, hoping Obama will unleash American tourists who want to visit the communist- ruled island. But some in Congress will try to tighten travel rules.
The president is unlikely to make further changes until the Cuban government eases its repression of dissenters and releases Alan Gross, a Maryland man jailed for bringing communications equipment to the island’s Jewish community. waited in line for a very long time,” he said. “By theway, we have to fix that.”
And the president is the only one saying that.
Gov. Rick Scott, when questioned last week about the long voter lines, said that seeing so many people turn out to do their civic duty was “exciting.”
On Wednesday, Scott stopped short of criticizing the state election’s process, but said he would be reviewing it with Florida Secretary of StateKen Detzner.
“What went right, what canwe improve?” Scott said.
State Rep. Perry Thurston of Plantation, the House Democratic leader, said that the state should be “embarrassed” by the lines and the national limelight they attracted.
“I have gotten calls fromall over the country asking why
not we can’t said.
In Palm Beach County’s case, 8,000 absentee ballots arrived in the mail Tuesday. And processing them is not a speedy task, due to a 2011 law. Elections officials are required to compare the signature on each ballot to the signature on a person’s voter registration. If the pollworker doesn’t think they match, the ballot can go through several layers of inspection before the county canvassing board decides whether to accept it or disqualify it.
The idea is to protect the state from absentee ballot fraud, but it also makes the process longer.
Bucher said Wednesday that she would have the information all turned over to state by Saturday, but didn’t sayhowmuchlonger itwould take.
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