This article, Obama to Propose Tougher Tax Regime for Wealthy, comes from of all places, The Wall Street Journal. Of course, they mention that initial reports of this may have started with The New York Times.

Form The Wall Street Journal version we have the following paragrapsh:

The general goal would be to prevent people earning more than a million dollars to pay taxes at a lower effective rate than people who earn under $250,000. That’s often the case because investment income, or capital gains, is taxed at a lower rate than regular wages.

…

On taxes, he’ll call for lower, flatter tax rates, while also pushing for some tax increases. The White House has already proposed limits on the amount of tax deductions wealthy Americans can claim, and administration officials want tax rates to increase for families making more than $250,000 a year.

The first paragraph seems to be the kind of change that is sorely needed.

The only way for me to keep calm when I hear that Obama is calling for “lower, flatter tax rates”, as in the second quoted paragraph, is to also pay attention to the words “effective rate” in the first quoted paragraph. I could only agree that “lower, flatter tax rates” could be a good idea if this applies only to the “nominal rates”, which the wealthy do not pay, while the “effective rates” of what the wealthy actually paid were made steeper and higher.