[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 83 (Thursday, May 18, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H5358]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     THE REINCARNATION OF TV MARTI

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Madam Speaker, I am certainly not a fan of the Republican 
budget resolution. But there was one item in it that made a whole lot 
of sense--the idea of terminating TV Marti. It is long past time we 
stopped spending $12 million a year to beam to Cuba in the middle of 
the night TV programs that nobody sees.
  I was pleased when Chairman Kasich took on the powerful Cuban-
American lobby and proposed eliminating their pet project. And on this 
point, it sure looked like the committee intended to go along with that 
proposal.
  At the markup on May 10th, the Budget Committee had before it both 
budget figures and a document with policy assumptions on how to meet 
those budget goals. The policy document listed a decision to 
``terminate broadcasting to Cuba'' as one of the cuts needed to achieve 
the budget-cutting goals for the international assistance portion of 
the budget.
  The draft committee report circulated on May 12, after the committee 
passed the budget resolution, stated:

       Overseas broadcasting played an important role during the 
     cold war, but has become and expensive anachronism with the 
     advent of global satellite television broadcasting. Likewise, 
     the technology used by Voice of America and WorldNet limits 
     their potential audiences and makes those systems inefficient 
     and expensive. TV Marti has achieved little success 
     broadcasting to Cuba.

  Any reasonable person would interpret all this to mean that the 
Committee supported termination. Many observers of the budget process 
reached this conclusion. The Federal Page of the Washington Post on May 
11 listed ``Terminate Voice of America and Radio Marti broadcasts to 
Cuba'' as one of the items in its ```House Republicans' Blueprint to 
Balance the Budget.'' (p.A21) The Miami Herald in a May 14 page one 
story called ``Cuban exiles losing clout in D.C.'' reported, ``To help 
balance the U.S. budget by 2002, the House budget committee called for 
eliminating funding for (Radio and TV Marti) next fiscal year.'' (p.1.)
  Then a most amazing thing happened. The final version of the 
committee report that was filed on May 15 reversed the Committee's 
apparent policy decision to terminate TV Marti. The sentence ``TV Marti 
has achieved little success broadcasting to Cuba'' was deleted. All the 
rest of the paragraph declaring overseas broadcasting ``an expensive 
anachronism'' remained intact. But where first appeared the admission 
that TV Marti was a flop, there now magically appeared the wholly 
contradictory statement that ``Funding, however, is available for Radio 
and TV Marti.''
  This is an interesting situation. The report now recommends getting 
rid of all USIA broadcasting programs--VOA, Radio Liberty, Radio Free 
Europe--but makes a specific exception for TV and Radio Marti.
  What happened over the weekend that resulted in this complete 
reversal? Who pressured Chairman Kasich to turn around on this and 
rewrite the report language? And what else in this budget has been 
changed after the committee vote? This is yet another demonstration of 
how difficult it is to kill a program, even when the program does not 
work.
  I want to give credit to Chairman Kasich for his effort to go beyond 
generalities, to details, in his budget resolution. This experience 
with TV Marti gives new meaning to that old saw, that the devil is in 
the details. It also, I am afraid, undermines the credibility of the 
entire exercise.


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