wouldn't that create a reinforcing disincentive discouraging service beyond 20 years?

Just since President Obama started these secret negotiations with the Castro regime, since June 2013, there have been reportedly 15,000 political arrests.

We have evidence, though, cause and effect of several other countries, Britain, Canada, others, having open trading relations with Cuba.

Cuba has increased the number of politically motivated arrests by 70 percent.

I want to state that what the chairman and vice chairman have stated relative to our unbelievably complex tax code has to be addressed.

Senator Cardin, who just spoke, and I are going to be introducing, this week, legislation that I hope you will be able to support.

I echo what Senator Menendez just said about Venezuela. We buy $32 billion of oil a year. We have not affected their regime one iota, that I can see.

The important point here is we are trying to empower the Cuban people.

I believe President Obama, with his actions in December, has taken the courageous step toward true change here by opening up the island to Americans.

As Senator Rubio pointed out, they are now, at least rhetorically, trying to put conditions on that.

The goal, as I think you said in your testimony, Madam Secretary, of the Cuban Government is to have Internet access for 50 percent of its population by 2020.

I very much support this policy of normalization. I think we are turning the page on a failed policy that has been going on since the early 1960s.

I would like to express my support for the extradition of Charlie Hill. Extradition of criminals, I think, is an important part of any normal relations between countries.

I strongly believe that these new policies will help. A growing number of Cuban entrepreneurs can connect with Americans and Cuban Americans and support the free market.

I would ask specifically, with regard to these interactions and entrepreneurship down there...

I think one of the things that is so important is opening Cuba up to travel, and there could not be better ambassadors than our citizens going down to Cuba and visiting about what we are all about in terms of democracy and human rights and…

the Cuban Government fundamentally has to make decisions, and we obviously want to encourage in every way possible that information and access to the Internet be made easier, cheaper, available, and open for the Cuban people.

For over 50 years, the United States has followed a failed policy in Cuba, a policy that has done nothing to lift up the lives of ordinary Cubans.