Back in the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty, but he starved his anti-poverty programs to fund the war in Vietnam.

Today, the Bush Administration and Republicans in Congress are fighting an undeclared war on the poor. They’re winning.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes about the latest battle in that war:

If Congress were merely useless, the country would be better off. But it’s worse than useless. In the iron grip of a Republican Party that is almost slavishly devoted to the Bush administration, it’s downright destructive, especially to the interests of poor and working people.

Consider the budget that will soon be sent to the president for his signature. Members of the House and Senate have agreed on legislation that achieves something approaching $40 billion in savings over five years primarily by hammering the sick, the poor, the elderly and college students and their families.

This is the same Congress that genuflects each time the president asks for yet another gift-wrapped tax cut for the wealthiest among us. The textbooks tell us that the U.S. is a representative democracy, but only the upper strata are truly represented.

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“The Congressional Budget Office,” wrote Kevin Freking of The Associated Press, “has concluded that [increases in Medicare premiums and co-payments] would lead many poor people to forgo health care or not to enroll in Medicaid at all - contributing to some of the $4.8 billion in Medicaid savings envisioned over the next five years.”

(I listened the other day to a story about a woman who had repeatedly postponed a visit to the doctor because she was broke and had no health insurance. It turned out she had breast cancer. By the time it was diagnosed, the cancer had already spread through much of her body. The prognosis for this woman is not good, and it should not be the policy of the United States government to encourage this kind of situation.)

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This is ugly stuff: mean-spirited legislators hacking like wild men with machetes at the already ragged safety net. Poor children, the very sick and the disabled are among those most likely to tumble into the abyss.

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Because of some minor, last-minute changes that have to be dealt with, the House will have one more crack at this bill before it goes to the president. It would be an opportunity for some Republican “moderates,” who should be appalled at what is happening, to step up and be heard.

Don’t hold your breath.