STEPHANOPOULOS: How deep is your commitment to this fight? Are you saying that if Congress passes a short term extension of all the tax cuts, you're gonna veto it?

OBAMA: George, here's what ... I'm saying is that we've got a fundamental choice about this economy. You can't have Republicans running on fiscal discipline that we're gonna reduce our deficit, that the debt's out of control, and then borrow tens, hundreds of billions of dollars to give tax cuts to people who don't need them. (crosstalk)

STEPHANOPOULOS: --everyone else, though. You don't propose a way to pay for those.

OBAMA: Look, the reason is because those folks, as I said over the last decade, at the time when the Republicans were in charge, didn't see a wage increase. Did not see their incomes go up at a time when their costs for health care, for college tuition, for everything else was going up. So, they are just barely keeping their heads above water. The one group that actually saw their incomes increase substantially when ... Republicans were in charge, were the top two percent of Americans. The folks who saw the biggest jump were the top one tenth of one percent of Americans.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Does that mean you will veto an extension of tax cuts to the wealthy?

OBAMA: What I am saying is that if we are going to add to our deficit by $35 billion, $95 billion, $100 billion, $700 billion, if that's the Republican agenda, then I've got a whole bunch of better ways to spend that money.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you're not saying you're gonna veto it.

OBAMA: I, there are a whole bunch better ways to spend the money.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How come you don't want to say veto?

OBAMA: There are a whole bunch better ways to spend the money.

