Both Governor Mitt Romney and President Obama ended their campaigns with calls for bipartisanship.

But John Cochrane, a Romney adviser and professor of finance at the Booth School of Business, thinks the country is in store for more Washington gridlock: “The situation we have now is a democratic president who thinks the Congress is a bunch of Neanderthals. We have a republican Congress who thinks the president is a socialist… They are going to be fighting it out for four years.”

Jared Bernstein, former chief economist for Vice President Biden who is now a senior fellow at Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, is more optimistic a deal can be reached: “Look these guys agree on 98 percent of the tax changes that should occur — if they can figure out a way to compromise, a lot of other stuff falls into place.”