The only mandate

After thanking friends and smiling at enemies, after dissecting races won and lost, after the parties and pomp of Inauguration Day, comes the work of the presidency. In a contest so close, with a near evenly divided Congress, the next president’s only mandate is to find common ground on the themes debated during the campaign.

Both George Bush and Al Gore presented aggressive agendas in the last year, but reality descends in January when the winner finds that some 85 percent of the budget is spoken for, debt reduction properly remains a prime issue for the public and Congress has demands that have nothing to do with the new president’s campaign promises. The most powerful job in the world still can accomplish a lot in the next four years. The following are a sample of what might be done after the voting public has told Washington that it favors neither party strongly and expects them both to get along:

. Maintain the fiscal discipline of the 1993 budget agreement and set an end date for the national debt. This not only frees up money over the long term, it builds world confidence in the nation’s economic base and attracts capital. Similarly, the Clinton administration’s approach to the Federal Reserve – do the macroeconomic policy conservatively, let the Fed tinker as it feels necessary – should be reinforced.

. Corporations may have paid for the recently concluded presidential campaigns but it is the workers who will need attention during the next four years. The nation should not turn away from the growing international trade that will continue to expand and probably could not in any event, but it should also find ways to make work pay at home. One way to do this is by offering businesses incentives to move into underdeveloped parts of the country in exchange for the promise of decent wages and benefits. Much has been made of the top fifth of wage earners seeing their incomes rise substantially over the last five years while those in the bottom fifth haven’t seen nearly the same improvements. That seems to be changing slowly; a little push from the White House could help it further.

. Foreign policy challenges of the next four years sound very much like the last 10 years, largely because they have been held in abeyance rather than solved. Iraq, where the West has grown tired of monitoring Saddam Hussein and the enmity of its neighbors fades 10 years after the Gulf War, is making money again through oil and that means that it can, more than just a few years ago, afford new weapons systems. In addition, the Middle East peace process, the possibility for more nuclear muscle-flexing between India and Pakistan, civil wars with the potential of genocide in Africa, China’s human-rights violations all loom for the next president. The president’s job first, however, must be to convey to the public why these issues matter and describe how the United States should approach the broad question of intervention.

. The first environmental issue the new president will face is how to guide the U.S. action after 160 nations next week meet at The Hague in the Netherlands to consider the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore have indicated their interest in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, especially from the utility industry. Their leadership will be needed, however, to move anything through a reluctant Congress.

. The nation’s seniors are going to end up with a prescription-drug option either as part of Medicare or as a separate plan during the next four years, but health care is going to need a lot more reform than simply that. There already is nascent agreement on the basics for providing coverage for the 43 million uninsured; the next president would serve the country well if he could advance that discussion into specifics of a bill that improved access for this group.

Tuesday’s vote doesn’t change the tight fiscal reins Washington has left on the federal budget and on any new programs or tax cuts, but the vote is clear enough in this regard: The nation, as a whole, was not convinced by either Mr. Bush or Mr. Gore, so whichever is declared the victor either seeks compromise with his opponents or seeks another job in four years.