South Carolina Lt. Gov. compares poor to 'stray animals'

South Carolina Lt. Gov. compares poor to 'stray animals'

Posted: January 25th, 2010 11:36 AM ET
From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby
CNN Political Ticker (online)

South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer is running for governor this year.

(CNN) - South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer isn't backing away from controversial remarks he made over the weekend comparing needy people to "stray animals."

Bauer, who is one of several candidates seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination, said Friday that providing government food assistance to lower-income residents - things like food stamps or free school lunches - encourages a culture of dependence.

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals," Bauer told an audience in the town of Fountain Inn, according to the Greenville News. "You know why? Because they breed."

"You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply," Bauer continued. "They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."
[emphasis added by CEB]

Bauer said recipients of government assistance should undergo drug testing or be forced to attend parent-teacher conferences, or else lose their benefits.His comments drew rebukes from rival candidates in both parties along with political and community leaders around the state. Responding to the uproar, Bauer told South Carolina reporters over the weekend that he could have chosen his words more carefully.
But he stood by his basic premise.

"Yes, I believe government is 'breeding a culture of dependency' which has grown out of control, and frankly, amounts to little more than socialism, paid for by hard-working, tax-paying families … against their wishes," Bauer said in an e-mail to supporters on Sunday.

Bauer wrote that the government has an obligation to help people in need, but, he said, "there's a big difference between being truly needy and truly lazy."
"We must find ways to instill some sense of responsibility or consequence into those who are now a part of the cycle of automatic hand-outs," he said in the e-mail. "Generational welfare is bad for the people on it and bad for the state of South Carolina."
Filed under: 2010 • Andre Bauer • South Carolina
308 Comments Permalink

chuck

January 25th, 2010 3:03 pm ET
How can anyone defend generation after generation after generation of welfare recipients. At some point you have to consider that we have bought ourselves a sour pickle.
Will

January 25th, 2010 3:03 pm ET
I'm so glad I work 50+ hours a week to pay the crack head down the street to have more children.

~~~~The above are just two of the voluminous comments following the artiticle, which you should read for your own edification. Why study history? is a quetion often asked. Has anybody out there heard of Eugenics? of Social Darwinisn? of Hitler? Are we doomed to play the same scenes throughout the play of history for want of a good education? I'm not a Christian but did not Jesus Christ himself reputedly state that "the poor will be with us always"? Do you suppose that he meant we should let them starve because of their own deficiencis? I don't THINK so. Comment by CEB