So here’s the thing about SNAP: it’s one federal program that really has exploded in size in recent years, with the number of beneficiaries rising around 80 percent. Of course, it’s exploded for a very good reason, namely a once-in-three-generations economic crisis, and the program has stayed large because our so-called recovery hasn’t trickled down to the bottom half of the income distribution. But the right doesn’t care about any of that; in food stamps, it gets to see what it wants to see — surging government spending! Millions of takers! And so food stamps become public enemy #2. Number 1 is, of course, Obamacare, which really does represent a major expansion of the government’s role.

And that, perhaps, is where Cowen’s weakness theory may come in: Republicans, frantic over their inability to kill health reform, may be trying to make themselves feel better by lashing out at the poor.