January 24, 2010
(ChattahBox)—Republican Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer of the bible-thumping state of South Carolina revealed his very special version of compassionate conservatism during a recent speech to his constituents, when he compared poor people on welfare to stray cats and dogs. Providing hungry people with an “ample food supply,” says Bauer only encourages the great unwashed of our society to breed more poor wretches whom the state is forced to feed. The genteel Southern gentleman is shocked that the poor on the dole have the bad taste to reproduce right under his nose, and he proposes that South Carolina “curtail that type of behavior,” by cutting off their food supply of government cheese and food stamps. Because after all, the poor, just like stray animals, can’t control their distasteful sexual urges. “They don’t know any better,” Bauer said.
Bauer is running for the Republican nomination for governor and he made his offensive comments during a town hall meeting. He proposed that residents receiving government assistance, like free school lunches, should be forced to take drug tests and attend PTA meetings and parent-teacher conferences and if they don’t: “bam, you lose your benefits,” said Bauer. He then explained his “stray animal” philosophy regarding the poor:
“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. 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,” Bauer said.
In South Carolina, 58 percent of students participate in the free and reduced-price lunch program.
Bauer went on to add that there should be “repercussions” for receiving state aid. “Look, if you receive goods or services from the government, then you owe something back,” he told the crowd of state lawmakers and about 100 constituents. The Republican Lt. Gov. drew on the offensive “Welfare Queen” and cultural wars rhetoric championed by the late Ronald Reagan. Bauer railed against “babies having babies” and the lazy good-for-nothings who stay home all day breeding. These people on Welfare “don’t have to do a thing,” said Bauer.
And of course these sneaky poor folks know how to game the system, because they keep reproducing to get more of that free government cash. “They can continue to have more and more kids, and the reward is there’s more and more money in it for them,” Bauer declared.
Bauer later made the argument that children receiving free school lunches do poorly in school:
“I can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina,” adding, “You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch, and I’ll show you the worst test scores, folks. It’s there, period.”
After receiving criticism for his despicable and tin-eared comments, Bauer would only admit that his remarks were poorly worded. He then denied saying that poor people “were animals or anything else.” And in a later interview with The State newspaper, he held firm on his statements that feeding the poor encouraged dependence and he refused to apologize for his comments. Bauer said that his proposals to stop feeding the poor were borne “out of love and compassion.”
The compassionate conservative Andre Bauer, made his statements on the same day that the jobless rate in South Carolina reached 12.6 percent.