South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer

The probable next governor of South Carolina created a national controversy last week by suggesting that government food assistance to poor people is like feeding stray animals because it only encourages them to breed.

Lt. Governor Andre Bauer was speaking at a town hall meeting in his bid to capture the Republican Party nomination to replace disgraced Governor Mark Sanford.

Asked a question about the fact that 58 percent of his state’s children participate in free or reduced-price school lunch programs, Bauer said, “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a 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.”

The conservative Bauer added to his assault on government aid programs by questioning the intelligence of the poor. He charged, “They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They [the poor] don’t know any better.”

Current Governor Sanford became caught up in a sex and marital cheating scandal which forced his resignation. (Taylor Media Services)