Whither Obama on taxes?

David Weigel notes that he tax stance that served Obama well in his town hall debate with McCain in 2008 will not serve four years later:

Obama had miraculous success in 2008 by promising to raise taxes on the wealthy as a way to be fair and close the deficit. It simply isn't working as well in 2012, when Obama owns four $1 trillion deficits. He can correct plenty of his staging problems in a town hall, compared to a back-and-forth podium debate. But he needs a bigger argument on taxes.

I'm not exactly sure why we should credit this, since Obama has not yet been able to put over his proposed restoration of Clinton era income tax rates on the top 2% and other modest tax increases for the wealthy, and the broad principle of "asking the wealthy to pay a little more" has broad popular support. But allowing that the tax proposals in Obama's proposed ten year deficit reduction plan are a bit lightweight, a few thoughts below about where we are and where we need to head: