President Obama has embarked on one of the most audacious experiments in American political history. He’s trying to expand support among America’s broad middle class through new programmatic appeals, while paying for this new largesse by boosting taxes on “the wealthy”–those individuals who earn more than $200,000 per year (or families who earn more than $250,000).

No big surprises here. Obama indeed promised to “spread things around a little” during the 2008 campaign. Normally an exercise like this produces some political friends and enemies. But here’s the twist. The president has some unlikely allies in his crusade to support the middle class: the “rich” themselves.