President Obama frames tax cut choice, but stops short of veto threat

This is just part of the transcript from President Obama's interview with George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America. You can read the full transcript here.

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.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, but no veto yet. No veto threat yet. Let's take a broader look, heading into the Midterms. Our you just, you might have seen the, the latest ABC News poll, showing Republicans have a big advantage going into the election. And I'm just wondering when you look at what it says about your personal attributes, as well. More Americans seeing you as liberal. And when you ask questions like, "Does he share my values?" It's gone like this since you became President. What's your analysis of what that's about?

OBAMA: My analysis is that we came in with great excitement and people hoping that we could turn the corner really quickly. And we couldn't. This is a hard set of problems that we're facing. And so, folks have now seen a year and a half of unemployment above nine percent. And long term unemployment at record levels. And so, people are hurtin' out there. And they're anxious and they're fearful.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And they don't think you get it.

OBAMA: Well I … I think that what people feel is, "Gosh, we should be able to do something faster to solve these problems." And I desperately wish that we could. I mean, these are the folks that I ran for office for. These are … folks in my family and Michelle's family. And this, this is…the middleclass folks who are out there are the very reason I got into politics. And so, it is frustrating and breaks my heart when I'm reading letters at night and people are saying, "I'm about to lose my house. I've been sending out a job, inquiries for, you know, months, a year, and I'm not getting anybody responding back. And so, understandably… they're angry and frustrated. And I happen to be the President of the United States. And they expect us to be able to do something.  READ ON

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