The Times They Are a-Changin’; Too Often, U.S. Policies Aren’t

Foreign, domestic policies live in the past

The United States is being poorly served by politicians living in the past when it comes to today’s realities. Two examples - one in foreign policy, one a domestic issue - underscore the shortcomings of current policies.

First, there is the U.S. relationship with Cuba. To be sure, there was a time when Russia’s military foothold on the island legitimately threatened the U.S. Not so today. Russia no longer has the resources to prop up the Communist government in Cuba and hypersonic missiles have reduced the threat of Russian proximity to U.S. shores.

Cuba is in crisis today. It is enduring an island-wide blackout as its old power plants fail. It doesn’t have the resources to purchase foreign fuel (Cuba uses three times as much oil as it produces). Its former patrons, Russia and Venezuela, have their own problems and no longer can prop up the Cuban Communist government. The third major source of Cuban oil, Mexico, has suffered the world’s biggest drop in production over the past year.

Cuba’s economy has been reeling for years. Even before the current blackouts, energy was in short supply. Havana, a city of 2 million, is ghostly dark at night, with only dimmed streetlights on a few major arteries and little ambient lighting from offices or homes. Power outages are common.

The average monthly salary is $20 U.S. dollars (supplemented by small food, housing and health subsidies from the government). Much of Cuba’s hard currency came from U.S. tourists. In 2019, President Trump imposed sanctions that effectively ended U.S. tourism to Cuba after President Obama had relaxed restrictions. The Covid pandemic was the final nail.

By any measure, the Communist government in Cuba has failed. There is no need to further crush the country and the people. The question now is whether U.S. security is well-served by having a country in collapse - with all the civil unrest that comes with the failure - 90 miles from the U.S. Facing a bleak future, an estimated 500,000 Cubans (in a country of about 11 million people) already emigrated in recent years. Many of those half million escapees - probably the great majority - entered the U.S. illegally.

A more thoughtful policy toward Cuba would have done much more to reduce illegal entry into the U.S. than a wall that is as ineffective as it is expensive. How long and to what end should U.S. policy be shaped by the political whims of Cuban-Americans in Florida?

Let Cuba compete without the stranglehold of U.S.-imposed sanctions. Let U.S. tourists travel to the island and spend their dollars. Let U.S. businesses explore market opportunities in Cuba and partnerships that might bring Cuban goods (few as they may be) to the U.S. and elsewhere.

Let Cubans have a chance to make lives for themselves in their own country.

The first eight days of October illustrate the second issue. In that short time, FEMA has spent nearly half of the entire disaster assistance budget Congress appropriated for the next 12 months. No, the money isn’t being spent to house immigrants. There is a program for that purpose that FEMA administers, but it’s a completely separate program with its own funding from Congress.

The problem is the increasing number of very expensive natural disasters. Last year saw a record 28 billion-dollar disasters. In three of the last four years, the U.S. has suffered 20 or more billion-dollar disasters (all costs are adjusted for inflation). To put a finer point on the crisis, there have been at least 10 billion-dollar natural disasters in each of the last 13 years, a level reached only twice in the preceding 30 years.

In the first eight days of the new fiscal year which began on Oct. 1, FEMA spent $9 billion of the $20 billion allocated for the entire year. Most of the money is being spent for relief efforts tied to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. We still aren’t through this year’s hurricane season, then comes winter storms, spring floods, summer wildfires and who knows what else.

And it’s not just FEMA that is budget-challenged. The Small Business Administration provides loans of up to $500,000 at 2.8% interest to homeowners to repair or replace homes damaged in a disaster. Those funds also are running short.

The Biden Administration has asked Speaker Mike Johnson to call the House of Representatives back into session to approve additional funds. So far, Johnson has refused. It seems likely that Republicans ultimately will give in to reality and approve additional funds sooner or later.

That leaves the larger issue unresolved, however. The federal government is spending money it doesn’t have. The federal deficit in the just-ended fiscal year was about $1.9 trillion with no sign that it will be reduced anytime soon.

Debate the reality and causes of climate change all you want (for the record, it is real and exacerbated by human activity), the fact is that the U.S. is experiencing far more very expensive disasters than in the past. Americans are divided on just about every spending program there is except disaster assistance to help neighbors recover from a crisis.

Congress should impose a dedicated income tax surcharge to pay for emergency disaster relief for individuals, businesses and communities. If there is one area in which fiscal responsibility, tax hikes and political acceptance intersect, it should be disaster relief funding.

It would send a strong message to the nation if the first proposal of the new administration is a fiscally-responsible, morally-correct, national commitment to always be there for victims of natural disasters. At the end of the day, for all the issues on which Americans disagree, most come together on this: Government never is better than when it lends a helping hand to people at the times of their lives when they are most vulnerable.