Imagine a scenario whereby a politician dedicated nearly all of his time and effort to providing financing to a notorious deadbeat.
Seems utterly irresponsible, right?
Yet that is the case with U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AR) and Cuba's Castro regime.
The biggest takeaway from the story below is not that Cuba's regime continues to default on its debts -- despite of all of the hype and spin -- but that some politicians who want to provide credit to Castro remain unfazed.
After all, they can always count on U.S. taxpayers to bail them out.
Excerpt from The Miami Herald's story, "Economic hardships in Cuba spark rumors of a new 'Special Period'":
The shortage of liquidity is so serious that Castro informed the population that Cuba has not been paying its foreign debts on time and Minister of the Economy Marino Murillo — who was later reassigned to a new position — said the government would not be paying new debts for the rest of the year.
His public statements came as U.S. agricultural producers are lobbying Congress, hard but without success so far, to ease laws and regulations that currently require Cuba to pay cash and in advance for its U.S. agricultural purchases.
Rep. Rick Crawford, R-AK., recently withdrew his proposal to ease those requirements after agreeing with Florida members of congress to look for different ways to meet the interests of U.S. agricultural producers. Crawford's office issued a brief statement saying that Cuba's failure to pay its debts and lack of liquidity “will not affect the Congressman's efforts.”
