BEFORE Fox News discovered Jason Greenslate, he was just another Californian beach slacker. But then he explained to conservative America that he had no interest in a regular job, yet received $200 a month in food assistance. Worse, he occasionally spent some of it on fresh seafood. Thus a new welfare bogeyman was born: Lobster Boy. Lobster Boy is now Exhibit A in Republicans" efforts to slash the cost of the food stamp programme, known as SNAP - federal food aid to the poor. On September 19th House Republicans passed a bill cutting $40 billion from SNAP over ten years. The number of people claiming SNAP claimants has certainly grown. In July 2007, before the recession, 26.6m Americans received it. Four years later the figure had climbed to 45.3m. By June it was 47.8m. The cost this year is around $80 billion, more than twice as much as before the economy stalled. Democrats say the rise is due to the downturn; Republicans say Barack Obama's administration has been too generous and allowed lazy Lobster Boy and his pals to sponge off the taxpayer. It turns out there is good support for the notion that most of the increase is counter-cyclical, as it is meant to be. Costs have risen because of the immediate effects of the recession and because of temporary changes in policy in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This law increased aid during the downturn, partly to help stimulate the economy. In a recent paper Peter Ganong and Jeffrey Liebman of Harvard University say that at least two-thirds of the growth in spending between 2007 and 2011 was the result of higher unemployment; 3% came from more states using relaxed rules on financial eligibility; and 9% because more places qualified to extend the period for which childless able-bodied adults (such as Mr Greenslate) may claim SNAP. The Recovery act temporarily raised the maximum benefit by an average of 13.9%, which also raised the incentive to enrol. The increased generosity of SNAP ends on October 31st. A family of four, for example, will receive $36 a month less. But states have leeway in deciding who can claim. Time limits have not yet been tightened in most areas, because local unemployment remains high. The rules allowing this are identical, says Robert Greenstein, president of the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a think-tank, to those under George W. Bush's administration. This helps explain why, if there are no more cuts, by 2019 the cost of SNAP as a share of GDP will fall to the level of 1995 (see chart). States are required to stiffen their rules as their economies improve. But House Republicans want deeper cuts now. They want to force states to reinstate the old time limits and to stop them varying the way eligibility is determined - by, say, taking account of high rents or child-care costs when calculating disposable income. Such changes would mean fewer treats for Lobster Boy but would also hurt the larger numbers who want to work but cannot find a job or a place on a training scheme. The Republicans" proposals will not get far. Their bill has to be merged with a broader farm bill that must be approved by both chambers in Congress and escape a presidential veto to become law. Time to pass a new farm bill is running out. The chances are rising that Congress will have to settle for extending the existing law for another year. The farm bill is thus being held up by arguments over relief the cost of which is likely to fall anyway and which most analysts consider effective. Timothy Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that the number below the poverty line is 16% lower than it would be without SNAP. "No other programme for the non-elderly does such a great job preventing poverty," he says, "or alleviating its weight on those who remain poor."