Taxpayers are paying for a plane NOT to fly
American taxpayers have been abused for more than two decades to appease a handful of mostly Cuban-American U.S. members of congress who simply want to “annoy and undermine the Cuban government.” That’s what I interpreted from a recently watched video in the Washington Post where reporter David Farenthold was interviewed.
Hundreds of millions of our tax dollars have been spent over the past 23 years in order to bother the Cuban government? Sounds kind of crazy, doesn’t it? It’s true.
TV Marti is a government-sponsored television station that was started in 1990 by the George H. Bush administration to appease a certain group of right-wing Cubans. In the process, the administration also hoped to achieve gains in the electoral process, especially in Florida among the Cuban-American community.
These members of congress have managed to keep the gravy train rolling now for more than two decades. They include and are led by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, retired U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, little brother Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Sen. Bob Menendez, Sen. Marco Rubio and others.
And while all of this money (OUR taxpayer dollars) is being wasted, the country’s infrastructure, social programs, health care and a host of truly necessary programs have suffered. In some cases crumbling under the force of limited budgets.
But don’t take my word for it. Watch this revealing video that tries to explain the TV Marti situation and the stubbornness of some of our political ‘leaders’ who insist on wasting our dollars at the expense of the elderly, children and crumbling bridges.
As Farenthold clearly states, all for a TV station that “doesn’t really reach many Cubans.” Adding that studies over the years indicate that at its best the federally-funded station reached “less than one percent of Cubans.”
The video, whose link we’ve provided at the bottom, specifically deals with a plane that was flown to try to force the TV signal into Cuba. The flight of this plane, which cost millions yearly to fly, has been put on hold over the past few months because of the congressional sequestration under which we live tabling budgets of programs deemed not necessary. But the arrogance and wastefulness of these Members has reached the point that they are spending $6,600 a month NOT to fly the plane. It is money spent on rent to keep it in a Georgia hangar until they can get it to fly again…
Their logic: If the Cubans are jamming our signals, it’s a sign that the program is effective.
Farenthold offers a different reason. He calls it congressional pride.
What Farenthold never mentions is the fact that for years TV Marti (and Radio Marti) have been used as employment agencies for friends and the well-connected of the politicians mentioned earlier.
