Conservatives may have a new talking point in their crusade to downsize the food stamp program. And it's even more absurd than the previous ones.

The Department of Agriculture on Thursday released a report about trafficking in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP. Trafficking is when people sell their SNAP credits, rather than use them to buy food. And apparently it's on the rise, as the Weekly Standard reported this morning. "Food Stamp Trafficking Up 30% From 2008 to 2011," the headline on a new item reads.

A 30 percent increase—that sounds bad! But look a little more closely. Thanks to that increase in the fraud rate, trafficking is all the way up to … wait for it … 1.3 percent. And while that’s higher than a few years ago, when the rate was just 1.0 percent, it’s still significantly lower than it was in the 1990s, when the rate peaked at 3.8 percent.

The Weekly Standard item, by Jeryl Bier, acknowledges that fact, but tries to place it in context. "While the rate, as a percentage, remains relatively low,” Bier writes, “the sharp increase in the SNAP program means the total annualized dollar amount of fraud reached a record level of $858 million, exceeding the $811 million from 1993.” This is true. It’s also true that enrollment in the SNAP program has dramatically increased over that period of time, so an increase in the nominal amount of money lost to trafficking was inevitable. But $858 million in a program that costs more than $70 billion? That isn't exactly a lot of money.

That rising enrollment, and the cost of supporting it, is what has conservatives so angry in the first place. But there’s a very good reason enrollment has swelled so much: More people need the assistance. SNAP usage has tracked the poverty level pretty closely, with only a small and temporary bump during the recession. As for paying the lazy to stay at home—which is what SNAP critics frequently say the program does—four out of five people on SNAP are either working or can’t work because they are children, senior citizens, or have disabilities. All programs attract some freeloaders and, surely, SNAP has its share. But the vast majority of people on SNAP need the help, particularly when decent-paying jobs are so hard to find.