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In his first public statement since election night, President Barack Obama said Friday that his main priority in the coming months will be to slash the federal budget deficit, primarily through major cuts in health care and other social programs.

Speaking from the White House, Obama announced plans to hold discussions next week with congressional leaders of both parties and business executives to work out a bipartisan agreement on budget cutting. In addition to austerity measures, the Democrats and Republicans are agreed on implementing a “comprehensive tax reform” that will benefit corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the majority of the population.

In the course of his brief remarks, Obama boasted of spending cuts implemented during his first term in office and pledged, in the name of “strengthening” Medicare and Medicaid, to cut even more from these programs.

With the US elections out of the way, the corporate and political establishment is getting down to the business of slashing federally guaranteed health care and retiree benefits, while implementing even greater tax cuts for big business and the wealthy.

An atmosphere of crisis is being stoked up with the approach of the December 31 “fiscal cliff” to prepare public opinion to accept extremely unpopular measures, including trillions of dollars in spending cuts and an historic attack on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Without an agreement, some $700 billion in tax increases and budget cuts will go into effect January 1, including cuts in military spending and an increase in income, capital gains, dividend, interest and estate tax rates. Such a circumstance is unacceptable to the ruling class.

The media has been filled with dire predictions of another market collapse, crushing tax hikes for working people and a sharp increase in unemployment if a bipartisan agreement is not reached.

The response of the Nation magazine to the reelection of Barack Obama underscores the deeply reactionary role of the “left” liberals for whom the publication speaks, and the politically diseased character of their obsession with racial and identity politics.

The tone was set in the magazine’s postelection editorial, posted on its web site November 7, entitled “A Progressive Surge.” The editorial makes the preposterous argument that the narrow election victory for Obama, whose right-wing policies resulted in a net loss of more than 7 million votes from his total in 2008, represented a triumph of progressive forces over the forces of reaction.

Of an election in which popular disillusionment with the political system and both major parties resulted in a net drop of nearly 10 million votes for president, with voter turnout declining in every state, the editors write: “This right-wing coalition was defeated at the polls by a ‘rising American electorate,’ a coalition of women, African-Americans, Latinos, the young and unionized blue-collar workers in Midwestern battleground states.”

In the wake of Barack Obama's victory in the 2012 US presidential election, Democratic Party officials have proclaimed their intent to collaborate with Republicans to slash billions of dollars in social spending.

In his victory speech, Obama made clear his priorities in the aftermath of the election, saying that “in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together. Reducing our deficit. Reforming our tax code. Fixing our immigration system…”

In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the president said nothing about poverty, mass unemployment or any of the other social ills afflicting tens of millions of Americans.

Obama's rush to slash spending comes despite the sentiments expressed in the election itself, where Obama, the candidate generally portrayed in the media as favoring social spending, won over the Republican Romney, who was viewed by millions of working people as a proponent of deeper spending cuts and an enemy of social programs.