Recovery?

Only for the top one percent it is, but all talk of "reforming" the tax code and such to force the rich to pay more is just rhetoric:

The centerpiece of this charade is the so-called “Buffet rule,” according to which those with incomes over $1 million would pay a minimum tax of 30 percent. Speaking at Florida Atlantic University Tuesday, Obama noted that the top 1 percent in America are paying taxes at the lowest rate in 50 years. He declared that these families should “pay the same percentage of [their] income as middle-class families do.”

Obama feels he is at liberty to make this extremely mild proposal because he knows it will never be implemented. Congressional Republicans would unanimously oppose it, as would a considerable section of Democrats, and he would not fight for it. Even if implemented, it would do nothing to restore a progressive element to the US tax structure, since it rejects the principle that the rich should pay more on their income than everybody else.