Cuban-American Senators on both sides of the aisle have shown their doubts over passing a spending bill which includes a provision to relax travel and remittance restrictions to Cuba.Republican Sen. Mel Martinez has reportedly “been working behind the scenes” to defeat the omnibus spending bill. The Floridian representative believes that the policy changes would only benefit the Castro regime at the cost of Cuba’s populace. Loosening remittance requirements “would provide the regime with an extra revenue of cash and would help maintain repressive policies" in Cuba, according to Martinez.
Meanwhile, the Senate's only Cuban-American Democrat has his qualms over the $410 billion spending bill. Much like Martinez, New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez is upset that the Obama administration isn't seeking anything in return from the Cuban government. “I'm sure if we were making significant foreign policy changes about our policy toward Venezuela, or Israel or Africa, the administration would be up in arms about having foreign policy changes made without their input ,” added Melendez who is playing hardball by upholding the confirmations of a pair of Obama's science appointees.
Democrat Sen. Evan Bayh and Russ Feingold announced their opposition to the omnibus bill earlier today. On Tuesday, however, Senate Majority Leader believed that the proposal would pass:
"I'm not wild about some of the Cuba provisions in this bill myself," Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat, told reporters. "There are a couple of those that I don't like very much, but it's not enough to bring the bill down, in my opinion."Image- miamiherald.com (New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez- a Democrat- is unhappy with provisions on Cuba that are part of the omnibus spending bill)
With Congress facing a deadline on Friday to pass the massive $410 billion bill to fund many government operations, an aide to Reid told reporters it did not appear that foes of loosening sanctions on the communist-run island had enough votes to strip the provisions.
Online Sources- miamiherald.com, Scientific American, AP, Reuters, tampabay.com, FOX News
To be sure, there is nothing in the cited story saying that Sen. Feingold will vote against the bill because of the Cuba language.
ReplyDeleteFor the record the same is the case with another democrat opposed to the bill - Sen. Evan Bayh.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to see how Feingold and Bayh would vote should the Cuba provisions been presented in a stand-along bill and not as attachments.