Now, it is not that I don’t think we need health care reform. We do. It is not that the rich should not pay fair taxes. They should.

But to justify a grossly over weighted tax by saying “You people have had it good long enough” is to engage in the worst and most destructive form of politics: class warfare.

By making a snarky comment like that, Gibbs suggests that the top 1% are a bunch of Bernie Madoffs, that they’ve been scheming their way to riches, evading the system, hiding their money in complicated offshore deals. You know — wink, wink — they’ve had it “pretty good.”

This is every bit as insulting as saying all poor people are lazy welfare cheats. Imagine the uproar if he’d said that. What’s the difference?

Both are dangerous lies.

For a moment, let’s take Gibbs and Obama at their words. “A pretty good run of it for many, many, many years.” OK. In what way? Did those people earn their money? Yes. Did they work for it? Yes. So in that regard they are no different than a schoolteacher or postal worker. They worked, they got paid.

Presumably, then — unless he’s suggesting they’re all crooks — when Gibbs says “a pretty good run of it” he means in taxes. Hmm. Let’s see. Those high income earners currently shell out around 35% in income taxes, the highest rate, plus state income taxes, local income taxes, property and other taxes that likely chew up between 45% and 50% of their money. If Obama’s tax-related plans all go through, it could, for some, approach 60%.

Stingy old rich bastards! Let's punish them by taxing them until they close their businesses or take them overseas, that will show them.