So what’s behind the G.O.P.’s war on the poor?

It’s not about incentives. The persistent claim on the right that America is filled with “takers” living off social programs when they should be working may be what conservatives want to believe, but it just isn’t true. Most nondisabled adults receiving aid work; most of those who don’t have good reasons for not working, such as health issues or the need to serve as caretakers for family members. Slashing benefits would push some of these people into the work force out of sheer desperation, but not many, and at a huge cost to their well-being.

And claims that excessively generous social programs are the cause of falling labor force participation can be easily refuted by looking at the international evidence. Europe’s welfare states — or, as conservatives always say, its “failing” welfare states — provide much more generous aid to low-income families than we do, and as a result have much less poverty. Yet adults in their prime working years are more likely to be employed in leading European nations than in the United States.

It’s also not about the money. At the state level, many Republican governors are still refusing to expand Medicaid even though it would cost them little and would bring money into their states’ economies. At the federal level, it would take draconian benefit cuts, imposing immense suffering, to save as much money as the G.O.P. casually gave away in last year’s tax cut.

What about the traditional answer that it’s really about race? Social programs have often been seen as helping Those People, not white Americans. And that’s still surely part of what’s going on.

But it can’t be the whole story, since Republicans are fanatical about cutting off aid to the less fortunate even in places like Maine that are overwhelmingly populated by non-Hispanic whites.

So what is the war on the poor about? As I see it, you need to make a distinction between what motivates the G.O.P. base and what motivates conservative politicians.