“I don’t think they ought to try and balance the budget on the backs of the poor.” Now guess which liberal Democrat made that observation? OK, it wasn’t a liberal. And actually, it wasn’t a Democrat. It was President George W. Bush. And at least for that moment, he got it right.

It’s a pity — and worse — that fellow Republicans seem to be waging a war against the poor in America. And as we might gather from Bush’s comment, it has been going on for a lot of years now. Bluntly put, it is shameful. It speaks to the hypocrisy of so many Republicans who claim conservatism and Christianity as the core of their beliefs, yet who brazenly ignore or flout the teachings of real conservatism and Christianity. And yes, tea partiers, we’re looking at you, too.

Here’s what going on these days, in case you’ve missed it. Republicans in Congress are proposing $40 billion cuts in the federal food stamp program. That’s right — those 48 million shiftless, hungry Americans — men, women and children, real people needing benefits, not figures on a graph — are getting too much help from the government and they need to be taught a lesson. So starve them. And that proposal comes on the back of a major cut in food stamps that kicked in on the first of November when an increase approved at the beginning of the recession in 2008 ended. I personally know a family of three who get less than $400 each month in benefits; As of Friday they get $24 less. Want to try feeding your family on that, Ted Cruz? Or John Boehner?

Now let’s be truthful. Democrats share in blame for that sudden cut in benefits this month, since it results from a deal they and the Obama White House thought would work with Republicans five years ago. So much for that idea. When the GOP got control of the House of Representatives, the deal went sour. Lesson: no deals with Republicans please.

Republican governors and legislators around the nation have been refusing to expand their Medicaid programs which provide health protection for the poor — even at no or minimal cost to the states. Why? Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman suggests, with evidence, that the party no longer stands for anything except hostility to the poor. “They are still clearly passionate about making sure that the poor and unlucky get as little help as possible,” he wrote last week. And if Paul Krugman is too much of a liberal for your taste, consider this statement several weeks ago from Ohio Gov, John Kasich, a Republican, speaking about his party: “I am concerned about the fact there seems to be a war on the poor. That, if you’re poor, somehow you;re shiftless and lazy.”

And to add just a bit more from Mr. Krugman about why Republicans are so antagonistic to the poor. It has something to do with race, that stain on our country that never quite goes away. We still hear echoes about “that black man in the White House” from radical Republicans. Republicans joke about “the President from Kenya,” and large numbers of them don’t believe the President was born in Hawaii. And according to a study quoted by Krugman, the Republican base voter “is very conscious of being white in a country that is increasingly minority.” And those voters see programs like food stamps and Medicaid as disproportionately helping those minorities. That, of course, includes poor blacks. And poor Latinos. And poor people.

How appalling that we seem to be at war with ourselves. And that the war has become a rallying cry for so many shameless politicians.