Poll defeat threatens Obama's health reforms

Top of their agenda was the President's cherished and hard-fought healthcare reforms.

The mid-term voting results delivered a stinging blow to Mr Obama and saw his Democrats lose control of the House of Representatives, although they kept a majority in the Senate..

The result, not unexpected, reflected Americans' anxiety about their livelihoods and anger about the economy. The outcome was the House's biggest party turnover in more than 70 years.

Mr Obama now faces the potential for legislative gridlock that could stall his agenda in the final half of his term. Even with the Democrats in control of both chambers of Congress, he spent his first two years battling to pass legislation.

In a news conference last night the President took some responsibility for the election thrashing and acknowledged the public was "deeply frustrated" with the pace of the economic recovery and said one lesson from the results was that he had not made enough progress in creating jobs.

"No one party will be able to dictate where we go from here," he said, in a clear warning to Republicans that he won't simply bow to their demands for a sharply conservative switch in economic policy.

And although he said he would listen to Republican ideas to improve the health care system he would not scrap his changes to it.

The first challenge to his plans came just hours after the Republicans' victory was confirmed when John Boehner, who is due to become the new House leader in January, claimed a voter mandate to roll back the health care overhaul.

"We have a big job ahead of us and that's why you'll see us roll up our sleeves and go to work today," he said, adding that Republicans will take the next several months to map out their agenda.

"The American people were concerned about the government takeover of healthcare," he added, "I think it's important for us to lay the groundwork before to repeal this monstrosity.

"Trying to do that, however, is likely to prove almost impossible with Democrats still in control of the Senate. Mr Obama still holds his veto power and the Republicans lack the numbers to override.

Mr Boehner pledged Republicans will use their new House majority to seek a "smaller, less costly, and more accountable government" and said he hoped Mr Obama would join them."

The elections were also the biggest test yet of the two-year-old ultra-conservative Tea Party movement, angered by what it sees as the excessive growth of government. It produced a crop of Republican candidates often at odds with the party establishment, and some of them won key races.

Incomplete returns showed the Republican Party picked up at least 60 House seats and led for four more, in excess of what was needed for a majority. About two dozen races remained too close to call by early evening European time.

The Republican gains will complicate Mr Obama's ability to enact his proposals during the last two years of his term and possibly force him to fight off attacks on health care legislation and other bills already signed into law. Although international affairs had little role in the campaign, Mr Obama's global agenda also would be affected in areas such as arms control and climate change.

Besides the congressional vote, Republicans were making gains in the 37 governors' races at stake, capturing at least 11 governorships from Democrats and several state legislatures. Democrats gained four Republican-held governorships, in California, Connecticut, Vermont and Hawaii. The vote count continued in three governors' races that were too close to call.

The new Congress will begin its session in January. Later this month, the current members, including those voted out of office, will go back to work to finish out their terms in what is known as a lame duck session.

While the newly empowered Republicans are likely to want to delay major issues until the new Congress is seated, there are many important measures that are still pending, such as tax cuts set to expire this year and a proposal to reverse the military's ban on openly gay service members.

Boost for US recovery

US policy-makers last night announced further emergency measures to prop up the recovery of the world's biggest economy.

The Federal Reserve said it would pump an extra 600 billion US dollars (372bn) into its economy over the next eight months in a second round of quantitative easing.

The money, which is higher than the 500 billion US dollars (310bn) which had been expected, is intended to boost its economic recovery, which has slowed since the summer.

The US injected some 1.7 trillion US dollars into the economy through quantitative easing in the height of the recession, but the Fed believes a further move, which has been dubbed QE2, is now necessary.