Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says the Obama administration will push for letting tax cuts for wealthy Americans expire while extending them for the rest of the nation.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is pushing to let tax cuts expire for the "highest-earning Americans."

In interviews broadcast Sunday on ABC and NBC, Geithner said the administration also favors protecting businesses from having some taxes restored to higher levels.

The administration wants to "leave in place tax cuts that are very important to incent businesses to hire new employees and to invest and expand in output," Geithner said on the ABC program "This Week."

Republicans say letting tax cuts expire for those Americans earning more than $250,000 a year will hurt economic growth as the nation recovers from the economic recession.

In particular, GOP critics say the $250,000 a year threshold means many small business owners would be included in the group seeing their tax burdens increase when the cuts enacted in the Bush administration expire at the end of 2010.

Geithner said the plan is to extend the tax cuts for more than 95 percent of country while letting them expire for about 3 percent, which he called the "highest-earning Americans."

Asked on the ABC show if letting any tax cuts expire would harm the recovery, Geithner said: "I do not believe it will have a negative effect on growth."

"We think that's the responsible thing to do," Geithner said. "We need to make sure we can show the world that we're willing as a country now to start to make some progress bringing down our long-term deficits."

Overall, he said, the government was "making progress" in restoring private sector job growth.

"I think the most likely thing is you see an economy that gradually strengthens," Geithner said on NBC's "Meet the Press," warning that more challenges remain.