Yup, the middle class is the primary victim - the Obama plan increases taxes on families with gross income greater than $250,000.The Obama plan did not cause the extreme disparity.
The definition of "wealthy" is having $1M under management. $250K annually ought to be enough to move rapidly towards that and certainly is in the top few % of US households even if they do manage to grasshopper it all away.
FWIW depressions and wars generally reduce the disparity, not least because increased taxes to fund a war historically strike harder at capital income. Not wanting to deviate onto the Obama plan (especially since I pay no capital gains tax or death duties and the tax rates I do pay are about to be reduced) but it strikes harder at capital too, and you are waging expensive wars at the moment.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
