President Obama highlighted inequality in his State of the Union address Tuesday, remarking “let’s close the loopholes that lead to inequality by allowing the top one percent to avoid paying taxes on their accumulated wealth.” Much of the inequality debate over the past year has been over French economist Thomas Piketty’s best-selling inequality tome, Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

The chair of Obama’s own Council of Economic Advisers questioned Piketty’s ideas in May 2014. Yet Obama is pushing forward with his fight against inequality by proposing tax hikes targeted against the wealthy. He wants to raise the top capital gains tax rate to 28 percent on couples who earn more than $500,000 annually, and also wants to make inherited capital gains subject to taxation. The Washington Post’s Matt O’Brien called the plan “Piketty with an American accent.”