Political Quotes

“I would be very happy if this amendment would ride into the sunset as long as it didn't return. Point 3 does relate specifically to Cuba which is an object case of the point 2, which is that the reason that Cuba is in its desperate economic circumstances is not to be blamed on the United States and our policy, it is to be blamed on Fidel Castro. The reason it didn't happen 20 or 30 years earlier is because as long as there was a Soviet Union, the Soviet Union was subsidizing Cuba to the extent of 20 to 30 percent of its gross domestic product. When the Soviet Union collapsed in the late eighties, its ability to continue to provide that kind of subsidy to Cuba also collapsed and all of the underlying inadequacies of a statist, Communist economic policy surfaced. For us to say that we are responsible for the impoverishment of the Cuban people because we have denied them access to food, agricultural products, medicine and medical equipment, I think, is, frankly, absurd and an affront to the people of the United States of America. It is Fidel Castro who has placed his people in that condition, not the people of the United States.”