South Carolina’s lieutenant governor Andre Bauer spoke his mind on the topic of welfare for the poor and the stray animals.

He compared welfare for the poor with feeding stray animals. His speech at the town hall meeting, suggested that he thought that both strays and welfare for the poor was on the same platter.

The 40-year-old Andre said at the meeting that his grandmother had told him that he should not feed the stray animals. “You know why?” he asked. “Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a human ample food supply.”

Andre’s comments raised quite a storm, and he later tried his very best to defend them. He later said that he meant that the government is breeding a culture of dependency with its numerous welfare programs. He said that the various programs “amounts to little more than socialism, paid for by hardworking, tax-paying families … against their wishes.” Later he also clarified that he regrets his usage of words in the statement.