Despite a rocky few weeks during the "fiscal cliff" fight, John Boehner won re-election as speaker of the House of Representatives on Thursday and will again lead Republicans as they take on the White House over federal spending.

Boehner defeated House Democratic leader and former speaker Nancy Pelosi 220-192 in a vote on the opening day of the 113th Congress. Although both Republicans and Democrats vote for the position, the election of a Republican speaker in the Republican-controlled House was a foregone conclusion.

Boehner vowed to use his second two-year term as speaker to shrink the national debt of $16 trillion to prevent it from "draining free enterprise".