Political Quotes

“today I am very pleased to join my friend, the junior Senator from Arizona, in introducing the Freedom for Americans to Travel to Cuba Act of 2017. I will have more to say about this bill, and United States policy toward Cuba, in the weeks and months ahead. My purpose in speaking today is simply to point out that 55 Democratic and Republican members of the Senate have cosponsored this bill to allow Americans to travel to Cuba in the same way that they can travel to any other country in the world. And based on my conversations with other Senators, especially Republicans, I have little doubt that if we voted on this bill today more than 60 Senators would support it. It is indefensible that the Federal government currently restricts American citizens and legal resident from traveling to a country 90 miles away that poses no threat to us, unless they engage in certain activities and not others. For example, an American biologist can go to Cuba to study threatened species of migratory birds. That same American cannot take his family on a trip to visit Cuba's national parks. Why? Because one is defined as scientific research and the other is defined as tourism. At a time when U.S. airlines and cruise ships are flying and sailing to Cuba, does anyone here honestly think that preventing Americans from traveling is an appropriate role of the Federal government? Why only Cuba? Why not Venezuela? Or Russia? Or Iran, or anywhere else?…”