White House confirms Obama's intent not to penalize the middle class

The White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Monday that U.S. President Barack Obama will keep his promise not to raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 a year, rebutting comments by administration officials that indicated otherwise. Obama's top economic advisers left the door open to such a tax hike over the weekend with comments that seemed to contradict the tax pledges Obama made on the 2008 presidential campaign trail.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Sunday declined to rule out a tax increase as a way to help slash record deficits. Later, Lawrence Summers said in Sunday`s morning television news shows that Geithner was not laying the groundwork for tax increases, and added that none of the White House proposals would burden the middle class.

Besides, Gibbs said Obama's position on the issue had not changed.

"I think the president has been clear on this. The first thing that we can do -- the most important thing that we can do right now is get our economy growing again," he said. "We're going to have to make some decisions down the road on some of the president's legislative priorities and some of the things that Congress wants to do, to evaluate how we move back toward -- on a path toward fiscal sustainability."

In addition, the White House repeated its prediction that job losses in the U.S. economy would continue to grow, and Gibbs said that fact would be reflected in unemployment figures set to be released Friday.

Despite positive economic news last week that second quarter GDP contracted only at a modest rate, the White House has warned that ending the flow of job losses would take time.