House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) appeared on Sunday to back off from a concession that he could support a partial extension of the Bush tax cuts.

Boehner had been calling for a two-year, across-the-board extension of the tax cuts, but he indicated Sunday morning that he could relent if he had no other option for extending the cuts for those making less than $250,000 a year. “If the only option I have is to vote for those at 250 and below, of course I’m going to do that,” Boehner said on a morning appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

He added, “But I’m going to do everything I can to fight to make sure that we extend the current tax rates for all Americans.” The tax cuts, which were enacted in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush, are set to expire Jan. 1.

In a statement Sunday evening, Boehner sounded a stronger note of support for extending the cuts for the wealthiest Americans. He decried “tired old class warfare rhetoric, pitting one working American against another.”

“If the president is serious about job creation, there’s a clear way forward, and that’s for us to come together and pass legislation immediately that cuts spending to 2008 levels for the next year and stops all of the coming tax hikes by freezing all current tax rates for the next two years. Anything short of that may selfishly check a political box for the president, but it fails the American people,” he said.