WASHINGTON (Bloomberg) — A Republican House leader said he opposes granting only a short-term extension to current tax rates for top earners, as a battle looms in Congress over the expiration of the tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush.

Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House's No. 2 Republican, said failing to extend the reduction for the highest-earners on the same terms as for other Americans would create uncertainty that would threaten economic recovery.

"I am not for decoupling the rates," Cantor said on the "Fox News Sunday" programme. "I am not for raising taxes in a recession, especially when it comes to job creators."

Republicans, set to take control of the House in January after last week's election victory, disagree with many Democrats on the future of the tax cuts that were enacted in 2001 and 2003 under Bush. The lower rates would expire on December 31 without congressional action, forcing lawmakers to address the issue in a lame-duck session beginning later this month.

In the Senate, where Republicans will remain in the minority in January, their leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said his party is willing to consider a temporary extension of the current top tax rates.

"We're willing to start talking about getting an extension of some kind," McConnell said on CBS's "Face the Nation" yesterday. "We don't think raising taxes on small business is a good idea."

President Barack Obama is urging Congress to extend permanently the lower rates for the middle class. Obama, in his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, said: "There's room for us to compromise and get it done together."

Obama has opposed keeping the tax cuts for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and married couples earning more than $250,000. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said last week that the president is "open" to negotiations for a temporary extension of all the tax rates.

Cantor said such a temporary extension would suggest that rates will rise in the future. "I am not for sending any signal to small businesses in this country that they're going to have their tax rates go up," he said on Fox.

The fight over the Bush tax cuts is developing as Republicans call for reduced government spending. In television appearances today, Republican leaders said the $1.3 trillion federal deficit is a sign of excessive spending, not the need for more revenue.

"The federal government doesn't have this problem because it taxes too little," McConnell said. "The federal government has this problem because it spends too much."