WASHINGTON – Rep. Charles Rangel yesterday blasted Dick Cheney as a “son of a bitch” after the vice president said the Harlem lawmaker would raise taxes and destroy the economy if Democrats take control of the House.

The bitter war of words escalated to the point where the bombastic Rangel even questioned whether the tightly wound Cheney needed professional treatment – and mocked him for accidentally shooting his hunting buddy ealier this year.

Cheney fired the first shot when he predicted that Rangel – who is poised to chair the powerful House Ways and Means Committee if the Democrats seize the House next week – wouldn’t continue “a single one” of President Bush’s tax cuts.

“I think that would be bad for the economy,” Cheney said on CNBC News. “I don’t know if the stock market would like it.”

He then got in a major hit, saying on the Fox News Channel, “Charlie doesn’t understand how the economy works.”

Many of Bush’s 2001 tax cuts are set to expire in 2011 – meaning rates would jump back up again, boosting taxes by well over $1 trillion, unless Congress acts to continue the cuts.

“So if a man like Charlie Rangel were to be chairman of the committee, and sitting there with the gavel, all he has to do is not act, just don’t call up the legislation, and there’ll be a big tax increase,” Cheney said.

The vice president’s stinging comments were the latest in a series of White House statements intended to raise fears about Rangel, as well as other prominent Democrats, as a way to convince voters to stop them from taking over the House.

Contacted by The Post for a response, Rangel unloaded.

“He’s such a real son of a bitch, he just enjoys a confrontation,” Rangel fumed, describing himself as “warm and personable.” Rangel said Cheney may need to go to “rehab” for “whatever personality deficit he may have suffered.”

“When you have those sorts of problems, you’re supposed to seek help,” Rangel advised. “He ac- knowledged that he has problems with communication.”

Asked whether he was resurrecting over-the-top charges he made last year that he believes Cheney is mentally ill, Rangel cracked, “I don’t think he’s shot anyone in the face lately, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”

The vice president accidentally shot his hunting companion, then-78-year-old Harry Whittington, with a shotgun early this year.

Rangel’s digs on Cheney recalled his statements last year that the vice president, who has had four heart attacks, was too sick to work.

“I would like to believe he’s sick rather just mean and evil,” Rangel, 76, told cable channel NY1.

“Sometimes I don’t even think Cheney is awake enough to know what’s going on. [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld is the guy in Washington . . . running the country.”

Cheney, 65, responded then, “I’m frankly surprised at his comments . . . They were so out of line it almost struck me that . . . Charlie was having some problem. Charlie is losing it, I guess.”

Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride wouldn’t respond directly to Rangel’s latest broadsides.

“The vice president has been discussing tax policy, the fundamental difference in Republican and Democrat views on how to keep taxes low and the American economy growing,” she said.

Cheney once famously told Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on the Senate floor to “go f- – – yourself” while Rangel once had a confrontation with Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) where the Capitol Police were called in.

Rangel said he is focused on Social Security, tax simplification and the Alternative Minimum Tax that is squeezing even some middle-income families – not what to do in 2011, when the Bush tax cuts expire.

“The president’s not going to be around in 2010. I may not be on the committee,” said Rangel, who recently said he’d quit Congress if the Democrats don’t win control of the House.

“It’s quite possible that I might want to extend the tax cuts,” he said, without naming any specific tax cut that might continue.

—-

Vice President Dick Cheney on New York Democrat Charles Rangel yesterday: ‘Charlie doesn’t understand how the economy works.’

After speculating that Rangel will end tax cuts if he becomes Ways and Means Committee chairman, Cheney added: ‘I think that would be bad for the economy.’

Rangel’s response: ‘He’s such a real son of a bitch, he just enjoys a confrontation.’

‘I don’t think he’s shot anyone in the face lately, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.’