What are the chances that President Barack Obama will persuade Congress to raise taxes on the rich and reward corporations who bring jobs home in an election year?

He'll be lucky to push through an agreement on the payroll tax cut, which is set to expire Feb. 29 unless Congress agrees to extend it. That makes substantive tax reform unlikely.

Changing the tax code is likely to be a years-long process, and even the members of Congress who would like to see changes are unlikely to push for reform this year. As Reuters notes:

Most of these ideas have stalled for years in Congress -- even some Democrats say they can wait for a complete overhaul of the tax code.

Obama has been trying since his 2008 election to change the tax laws that reward companies that take jobs overseas, but has gotten nowhere, Jonathan Weisman wrote in The New York Times.

The president proposed raising taxes on the rich last fall. In Tuesday's speech, he framed the issue as one of fairness. "You can call this class warfare all you want," Obama said in his address. "But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense."

Voters are split on the issue, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll released Tuesday. That poll found that a majority of Republicans approve of taxing investment income at a lower rate, while a majority of Democrats and Independents believe it's not fair to tax capital gains at a lower rate than wages are taxed.

Here are some comments on Obama's tax proposals:

• Norm Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute: "Tempted as they may be by more tax cuts, anything that smacks of a deal with Obama, or a victory for Obama, especially one that undercuts their theme -- however detached from the reality -- that Obama is a tax-increaser, will be reflexively resisted by Republicans in both houses."
• National Journal: "The upper class and middle class receive the bulk of the tax breaks in the current code: from mortgage tax deductions to child tax credits to deductions for state and local taxes. If the president is serious about reducing the deficit and making the tax code simpler, he’ll have to ask the middle class to take a hit financially and give up some or all of these politically popular deductions. And, taxing the middle class was certainly not a theme in Tuesday night’s message."
• GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney: "He's really trying to divide America. . . . The question is whether we're going to eliminate the capital gains tax break. "So if you say we're going to raise that dramatically, you're going to choke off a lot of the capital that goes into creating new enterprises and creating jobs. It's the wrong way to go."
• GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich: "It would lead to a dramatic decline in the stock market, which would affect every pension fund in the United States. It would affect every person who has a 401k. It would drive capital out of the United States. It would be the most anti-job step we could take."
• Financier Warren Buffett: "The question is what is fair when you have to raise multi-trillions to fund the United States of America. (Raising taxes) will not change my behavior. I have paid all different kinds of rates and I’ve always been interested in making money. I believe this should be a defining issue. Debbie (Bosanek, his secretary) works just as hard as I do and she pays twice the rate I do."
• Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona: "I think that's where the American people are, and we would be foolish not to run where the president's running."

More from MSN Money:

• Dems decry Romney's tax 'loophole'
• Gingrich ploy skirts Medicare taxes
• Dueling tax plans: Romney vs. Gingrich
• Romney's GOP rivals want to cut his taxes
• Payroll tax cut: Where's the revenue?
• Obama: Give tax breaks for US jobs