1103obamaA chastened President Barack Obama signaled a willingness to compromise with Republicans on tax cuts and energy policy Wednesday, one day after his party lost control of the House and suffered deep Senate losses in midterm elections.

At a White House news conference, the president said that when Congress returns, “my goal is to make sure we don’t have a huge spike in taxes for middle-class families.” He made no mention of his campaign-long insistence that tax cuts be permitted to expire on upper-income families.

He also virtually abandoned his energy legislation—hopelessly stalled in the Senate—featuring economic incentives to reduce carbon emissions from power plants, vehicles, and other sources.

“I’m going to be looking for other means of addressing this problem,” he said. “Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat,” he said, strongly implying there will be others.

In the campaign, Republicans slammed the bill as a “national energy tax” and jobs killer, and numerous Democrats sought to emphasize their opposition to the measure during their own reelection campaigns.

The president opened his post-election news conference by saying voters who felt frustrated by the sluggish pace of economic recovery had dictated the Republican takeover in the House.

The president said he was eager to sit down with the leaders of both political parties “and figure out how we can move forward together.”

He sought to tread a careful line, suggesting he would cooperate with Republicans where it was possible and confront them when it was not.

With his comments, Obama largely followed the lead of Republican leaders who said earlier in the day they were willing to compromise—within limits.

With unemployment at 9.6 percent, both the president and the Republicans will be under pressure to compromise. Yet neither must lose faith with core supporters—the Republicans with the Tea Party activists who helped them win power, Obama with the voters whose support he will need in 2012.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

For more see Emily Belz’s WORLD Web Extra “The day after.”

See WORLD’s interactive national map for complete election results from across the country.