I only said there are certain things he believed do. First, if youre running out of money, people would rob the agencies and accounts so it is not noticeable to the average public. When that runs out they will make cuts within government. They will cut back in late people off. And the last thing they want to do is raise taxes because then somebody has messed up. That is what they believe. So basically what you have to do is look at the wholistic approach. And then you say well, this we can afford in this we cannot. Everybody is afraid to talk about taxes. You look now and we cannot even agree on the definition of revenue. That is hard to believe. You would think we cut the taxes, right . If we got rid of the junk in the box all the give away and the problems that ever lobbiest has been able to get it tax provision put in for the special Interest Groups here it with all that being said, that is a tremendous drawl on the revenue. No one ever says how much is that cost . When you introduce them, how does that cost . There is no question ive been a big simpson supporter. I thought the president missed a golden opportunity to make a bipartisan effort and tweak it the way he wanted to. Basically, we had a threepronged approach that we fix this. You think your revenue and you take care of everything. In your household and your is this, if you get your revenue under control you are in great shape. When you are dont when you dont, you are behind the eight ball and my grandfather used to say that indebtedness tax expenditures have the same budgetary affect as spending increases. We know about the charitable deductions, Corporate Tax elections, we dont always appreciate the cost of the tax expenditures. We can start the process of overhauling the process and not harm businesses were our own constituents. I will introduce legislation to allow congress and the omb to include tax expenditures and budget materials. The same way that discretion three spending and mandatory spending our line items in the proposals and reviews today. They will have to take them the same we do as appropriations. I was want to know the actions we took were working and if we needed to amend or improve them. In washington it feels like everything every time we do something it is something that needed to be done. We never acknowledge we made a mistake. It didnt work. If that is the case, why do they need us to come back . We fixed everything if we are that good. What if we didnt the reason i , think our Founding Fathers had us coming back is to make justice. I made a mistake. It didnt work out. The information i got was wrong. We will fix this. That is what i am trying to say. In washington, it is no different than back home in West Virginia. I have always told people if i got something wrong, i made a mistake and i can fix it. It didnt work out that way. So lets go back and correct it. One way to address this is to reform the regulatory system. I am introduce legislation to reestablish the office of technology assessment. Up until 1995, this office provided non partisan information to congress on cost benefit analysis on regulations and regulatory changes. Currently the only source for this information is the White House Office of information and regulatory affairs. It should not come from the White House Office for us to make decisions in congress. Congress needs their own system for retrospective review with existing ways to identify various regulations and terms. There are common sense bills out there to help identify ways for the government to work more efficiently. Last congress i introduced the duplication elimination act to make it easier for congress to eliminate duplication and overlap. The bill would require the president to submit a proposal, and send a joint resolution to congress each year on how to carry out recommendations outlined in the Government Accountability office. Some years ago it be 300 300 400 billion in cuts. Within 90 days of the goas report the president must provide congress with a draft proposal and report explaining which are excluded and why they are not included. Why did you pick some, but not take the recommendation to consolidate. And give us your reasoning for doing that. Make it transparent so we understand. We think that would work well. Both chambers of Congress Must vote proposals in ten days. And any dollars achieved must be used for deficit reduction. We we are not making an attempt and no one is worried about an 18 trillion deficit. This is a winwin deal. It gets rid of government waste and holds the government accountable for unnecessarily and unacceptable redundancy. We are starting to see a glimmer of hope and that is one reason i decided to stay in the senate. If it was about personal politics and not public politics i would be out of here. Public service is truly what it refers to. It is public. I looked at it from the standpoint that i have dont have the same feeling i have one governor to come here. I feel like i probably Something Back home. I left the state in better shape than i received it. I dont feel like i have a congress enough here. I see changes the dont feel good enough about doing something. I feel there is more to be done. I feel like i can make a difference and we can make your more of a difference. We are debating legislation and working on a minute and i feel there is more work to do. I know the Campaign Season is ramping up and we are likely to see negative ads all over. Im hopeful that some of my colleagues will join me in the pledge ive taken. I would love to see everyone sign. I took a pledge that said why doesnt this place work . And i said let me give you the scenario. Human nature is this. It is hard to say no to your friends. It is truly hard. With that we have no relationship and not many friendships. And i will work with you. I said on top of that, every day i come to work they expect me to make phone calls and raise money so that can be spent against our colleagues. I am a democrat and they expect me to go on the trail and campaign against a republican. They expect all of my republican colleagues and friends to do the same. How in the world on monday can you come to me and say lets sit down and work on this. I have a good idea. I know last week you spent money on ads against me and went to my home state and told people they should not vote for you. What makes you think i will sit down with you and work it out. I it does not make sense. It took a place i will not raise a dollar or campaign against any colleagues. I think of mexico horrible atmosphere and a horrible situation that we live in up there. If you want to know why we are so this optional and dont get along is because everybody is afraid to talk. Guilt by conversation here at they are afraid to talk and tell them what theyre working on is a could be used against them. They can see whatever they talk about coming up and add against them. We cannot campaign. Hes to be an unwritten pledge. I heard that nobody campaigned against each other before but that is not the case anymore. That is what am trying to do. There is not one colleague of mine, even the ones they disagree with, who i cannot work with and not one colleague can look at me and say joe manchin tried to take my job would. Not one here it i was told them im the bellwether person there. They bring it to me and i tell them let me talk to several my colleagues in see of it is something they can agree on. We try to find a commonality. And the governors caucus is one we work closely with. I dont believe this place is working. Senator byrd told me it did but im not going to stop fighting. I think it is well worth the fight we have in it to make this place work. We have a lot of other challenges greater than this for our country. We overcome the mall. I think we can overcome this, too. I appreciate it and i think were vanessa questions now. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible] kamarck senator manchin and senator bird were on my mind. We you have so much weve been talking to senator manchins staff for some months now about the interesting and valuable perspective that former governors bring to the United States senate. One of our ad brookings advisers here is former governor point of which from ohio. He was thrilled to hear you are doing this. He was the former ayre, governor , and senator and money left the senate we lost the champion for sensible government reform in the senate. I am proud to see senator manchin stepping into that role today. In the former governors. I am very impressed with the reform agenda he is outlined here. From process agendas like returning to bipartisan lunches in the governors caucus itself to substantive reform like including tactics miniatures in the budget process here it something we have talked about in the think tank world for a long time. It needs to be something people are grappling with lyrically to the return of the Office Technology assistance assessment. One of the future really valuable small, i think the whole thing had 90 people in it or something. Small pieces of government that was well worth its weight and somehow has gotten shocked. Chopped. I would like to open senator by asking you a sort of general question. Why is it so hard to get the United StatesCongress Interested in these commonsense nonpartisan reform issues. Manchin well, as i said in the speech, they are not sexy or something that make you want to go out and vote or write a check and help somebody. Right now they are chasing to end the vote. There is a never ending cycle. Everyone is in cycle. It is a six year cycle in the senate, to your cycle for the house, for your cycle for the president. Everyone seems to be in an election cycle. If you notice when people say outrageous things and people of responsibility you would think that doesnt make any sense at and why would you say that. The country is so divided with the 24 72 cycle that we are on overload. People do not know what to believe. Were is paranoia is just running rampant. Last thing i heard about a special forces are going to take over texas. I couldnt believe when i heard that. They said we got to have a National Guard in texas watching united date Government Special forces come in and do training. Theyve been doing it for quite some time. I just kind of nonchalantly said if you are that worried in texas about the federal government and special forces we will take them all in West Virginia because we still trust them. This is what it is gotten to it has gotten too. How do you get out of that . I dont know. I dont think Citizens United did us any favors for our country. We might talk about a wealthy individual having his own primary, and they are locating to this individual to see where his moneys going to go. Thats not how we do it back home in West Virginia, but we dont have anybody that wealthy to go after. If we did, it wouldnt be the right in. We still have limits of 1000. 1000 is the maximum you can give any candidate, and i think it works pretty well. Kamarck lets go to tax reform for a minute. The whole notion of tax expenditures many of you in this room im sure know that over the last several decades as the discretionary part of the budget has shrunk, we have legislated the tax expenditures of the f tax expenses, and tax its ministers have gone way up. Tax expenditures are also very seductive to politicians. Do you think we can break that habit . A sort of snuck in there they snuck up almost with no one knowing what is happening. Senator manchin there were people who knew what was happening, just not the general public. When i said we cannot even agree on the definition of revenue let me tell you what i mean by that. As an individual you do a budget. Know how much money is coming in, and how much you spend. You know your fixed costs your variables, and what you had to play with, and you try to stay within that balance. We do the same here. Erskine bowles 1997, basically was the author, working with the Republican Congress at that time under president clinton, and put a budget together and a tax reform that basically put us on the path, i think, of solvency. If we would have stayed under the clinton tax rates, we would have been totally debtfree as a nation by 2012. By 2012. We had teen of tax cuts that came. Two wars unfunded. It started crumbling from there. I told democrats if they want to blame her publicans, go right ahead. They are at fault. I tell republicans if they want to blame democrats, go ahead. We are all at all. If you cannot agree on revenue that means when you get a tax code this is where all siphon simpson took a threepronged approach you have to look at everything. Everybody has to take a little bit of a haircut to get this thing back in place, but no one is willing to sacrifice a vote for that or a bad ad on tv against you, and i think what we got to do is get a bunch of senators who are thinking about retiring who could care less about getting reelected and say they will sacrifice themselves and be the ones to fix this thing for the next generation. Weve done tax reform about every 17 years. We have not done major tax reform since 1986. I tell my republican friends who have taken the note new tax pledge i say i understand its going to be hard. How are we going to pay down 18 trillion if we dont have revenue . If i reduce the tax corporate got to get rid of a lot of the junk, a love the credits, and a lot of the offsets, and a lot of goodies written over the years. These go away. At the end of the day, we spin off 1 trillion. Dynamic growth is going to happen. When you have confidence theres a fair system. When you know the system is fair and you know you know youre treated fair, the sky is the limit. With that being said, how did you spend the trillion . I talked to my republican friends i tell them why dont you take this position we have a Global Competitive rate in personal and corporations, ok . Cannot had money, cannot go offshore. We have to pay here. We do that, and now we have money coming in. Given that we reduce the rate. A few friends will say the rate was 39. 6 , but i have a lot of offsets, so theyre paying now more now at 33 them before. That might be true. 60 since of every new dollar that came and went to debt reduction. That would continue until we get to 65 of debt to gdp, which is manageable. Its what all economists tell you is manageable. The other . 40 goes to infrastructure bank, only can be used for infrastructure of the united gates of america. Nowhere else. Thats it. Rebuild america. You have cash flow into the bank. Its an 80 20 match coming off of that and . 60 off of every dollar goes to debt reduction. Republicans have held democrats feet to the fire you cannot expand entitlement programs, and we were able to his democrats put a fair system then and dedicate towards getting rid of our debt. And you can have a balanced budget in 10, 15 years. When you talk about retiring senators, it reminds me of the famous movie of a blink and that was just out of Abraham Lincoln where he was counting of votes to pass the 13th amendment, and the first thing he did was found everyone who was getting ready to retire. Senator manchin i want to encourage that. Kamarck thats right. We have a great audience here. A couple of questions before the senator leaves. They who you are, please. I with policy at his website inside sources. They are to glasgow came to washington and outlined a different policy agenda than the one you just outlined mayor deblasio. Why are he and senators like Elizabeth Warren wrong to advocate a more progressive or liberal agenda . What do you think is the future of the Democratic Party if it goes down that path . Senator manchin they are not wrong. The interest loophole is the biggest one we have. It should be that way. We agree on that. Minimal wage im for raising minimum wage. I think it should be indexed. I think a lot of things should be indexed once we get them back to where they should be. Minimum wage from that standpoint is not going to raise the middle class. We will not be able to. We are ready to pass on the largest trade deal one of the largest trade deals in the history of this country. If we do that without looking at what we are doing and understanding what has happened hindsight is 20 20. Go back to 1992. My little state of West Virginia lost 31,000 jobs since nafta. Its hard for me to go home and say, guess what . This is going to be different. Where a lot of our jobs were lost was in the inner cities. We had a lot of things going on. We lost all that. Its become rampant with crime and unemployment. How are we better off . The other thing is that you have not heard anyone on the campaign trail talking about it. Theres not one of us in this room that is not know someone who has not had a Prescription Drug problem. It is rampant. We cannot find people who are clean enough to work. Our education is not pushing them to get skill sets where they can pete where they can compete. Im fine. I can look at a progressive. I can look at a very conservative, but somewhere in between, youve got to you know, i said this im not right on every issue, but im not wrong on every issue. Ive got something to contribute. When mayor deblasio came, god bless them. We want to hear all your ideas. Elizabeth warren is a good friend of mine. We teamed up on a lot of amendments together and trying to put some balance to this thing, but on the other hand, you cannot chastise everybody that is out there investing, out there trying to get a return on investment, out there willing to take a risk. We just got to make sure that we can continue for this system of ours this unbelievable system of ours. The economy we have is 18 trillion. Doses want to it is china 10 trillion. Everything all the everything falls off from there. It tells you we are the big people. We are the superpower. We have a super power. But we should protect some of the jobs we have here and grow some jobs. Thats the problem. This a lot of things i will agree and a lot of things where i might disagree, but i always try to find the balance because i have been able to talk to the people from the far left and our right and tell them that it sounds good but if it does not make sense, i cannot sell it back home. Kamarck right here, yes. Thats ok. Well get ready. John hey, how are you . Im just hereby myself. I was just wondering kind of how you see the trend of your state over the long term. Ive noticed in previous election cycles, its gone very hard to the right. I know lots of that is probably in reaction to obama. I was wondering do you see things improving maybe after obama . And then also, i would like to hear your thoughts on mr. Justice. Senator manchin bill clinton was the last president ial candidate to win is a democrat in West Virginia. States have gone progressively republican since then. Even though we still have 62 of all citizens registered democrats. You would think with that many registered democrats what you know, i tell them we are a little bit different democrat in West Virginia. I tried to describe myself i tell people im fiscally responsible and socially compassionate, but i think thats most people, if you are democrat or republican. That gathers a lot of people in that arena. With that being said, our social agenda basically, is much more conservative than the National Democrat agenda. With that, we have to be able to articulate that a little bit clearer. Jim justice he was a republican, just turned him a crack to run for governor, but jin is one of those guys that crosses over. Hes a great person. He has created a lot of jobs, and he will be a job creator. Hes inks thinks outside the box, so that will be good. Democratic voters need to be looking more at the candidate. President obama brought in a climate agenda that we differ with, and its not because we dont want it clean we want clean climate. We want clean air and clean water and all that, but theres a balance between the environment and the economy and the only thing i said if its not obtainable, its not reasonable. He have put some play some things and play that we do not have technology in place. The federal government wants to invest and Fund Technology that does a certain thing, and you decide youre not going to do it because it cost too much im sorry, you are out of business. It technology has not been developed, and youre doing everything you can with the best of what is available we should not push you out. When a coal miner and a family lose and 80,000 job, and all they got as a service job for 20,000, 25 thousand dollars, is personal, and theres just deep animosity toward the president and his policy, and all the democrats are suffering them it. Kamarck let me ask the senator something ive been thinking about since you brought up the jobs. Its interesting. I wonder how your republican colleagues will feel about this. The argument is made that for every, say, medicaid or Medicare Fraud investigator, we ought to hire more. It would be an argument for increasing the federal workforce, which, of course, republicans seem to be completely allergic to. Do you think that if you could prove that there were, in fact, revenuepositive offices, you would get some momentum for helping them bring in more money . I would like to think of them that way, and i would sure try but it makes sense that if we can show you that rather than changing the makeup of Social Security and medicare and medicaid, reform it. President clinton reformed medicaid reform, which helped send a positive message. Five years and youre out, you have to find a job. We are not rehabilitating anybody. The culture of america is we dont seem to want to hold you responsible or accountable. We give you something, and if it does not work, we will give you twice as much. Its not why did it not work. Why was governor, i asked for a medicaid waiver because i just could not keep up with the cost. I had a lot of people that needed help, and i told the federal government, you should not make me take care of a healthy poor person the way i think i have a moral responsibility to take care of a sick poor person. Thats sick poor person has very little options. That healthy person, if i can get them back of the work stream and mainstream, they can get back on their feet and go back and do something. I did what we Call Mountain choices, rewards. I reward you. Pain and suffering for dental and eye care i said if you want your doctors visit and did not go to the emergency room, if you join healthy choice, healthy lifestyle, ate properly, and exercised, and did the you are supposed to do, i would have you ready to go back into the workforce. Federal government fought me tooth and nail against that kind of responsible, reasonable approach. It just makes sense. If we cannot hold people accountable or responsible, i would tell my public and friends let us try. Before you want to privatize this or that, you cannot privatized Social Security or medicare. Im 65, 70 years old. My negotiating days are probably over by then. Im not as good a negotiator as maybe i was a little while ago. Dont put me in that position because of going to get hurt. Just a humanistic approach to some of these things does not even ring true. We keep looking for fraud. Social security weve got more people signing up for total disability than ever before. Theres people to know i can go anywhere the country you know somebody whos receiving a government check that you dont think should be. Everybody raises their hand. I know somebody. I know somebody. Why arent we rechecking jaclyn make them come back to see if they are still totally disabled. Why arent we rechecking . Tell me why on Social Security, that we have capped at 112 all we have to do is get that up to where the average of 200,000 250000 and index it run there, we have cash flows that will go for a long time. That is not offensive. As a senator and congressmen, we make 174,000. Our paid changes about 7, 8 months into it. In seven or eight months, i have learned to live off what i was getting for the six or seven months, so it would not hurt me. I mean, that just makes sense. We talk about these things, and people just have a hard time understanding it. I threw this out Social Security they talk about costofliving increases, but let me tell you, theres some people that have to have a costofliving increase because its all theyve got. And theres other people that might not. My parents did not need a costofliving increase. My parents would have been fine with no car. My aunt would not have been. She needed that car. You start thinking in the real world, how do we make this work . Do you say anybody that has income greater than 250 percent or even 300 of the poverty guideline should they be exempt . Youre going to get your Social Security check but if you are below a certain level, you get the cola. We have gotten all this other stuff, all the fights and arguments going on. No one is having the real hard discussions. Yes, maam. Last wednesday, ross rowland had a meeting with me. The American Freedom train and bicentennial. He basically said that our meeting was gods way of acting anonymously because there are republicans that want to fund amtrak infrastructure, and they are scared. They are actually nervous, so there are people that are experts in both parties that want to help provide information to the senate and the congress, but what avenue would they go to . Is there a list of politicians that would be open to hearing from a Bipartisan Coalition . Senator manchin what we do on that any time you have some but he that wants to get a point across look at the committee that it basically would adhere to. If it is cost perspective, thats probably commerce committee. Get a senator to ask if they can present at a public hearing. They can come to a public hearing or to a subCommittee Hearing. They can get their point across much better that way and see if it is worthwhile than trying to run the halls and find a couple of people sympathetic towards them. I would recommend them coming to a Committee Member and ask to be on a subcommittee panel to present their views. That would be the best way. Kamarck great. Senator, thank you so much. You have laid out a Pretty Amazing reform agenda today. Im hoping that the former governors caucus is going to become a real force in the United States senate and remembered as a bipartisan caucus because there are some Republican Former governors as well as democrat, and therefore there are some of us at brookings at your disposal to help you make government as good as it can possibly be. Senator manchin let me say that we have used brookings quite extensively, and i think all of us look to find that common ends in the middle of the road, it you will. It will have to be people speaking out before we hit the proverbial wall. The financial wall is the one im concerned about. Wall street cannot be doing this tremendous when everyone else is not getting the bump that they should be getting out of it, and before long, people will lose confidence. When they lose confidence, you will see a big switch, and when that happens, you will see a lot of people that are reluctant and scared. When that happens, you have Serious Problems on your hands as we did in 2007. We are watching closely, but i encourage all of you, keep involved with our offices. All of us have webpages. Webpages are another way to get to us. Our staff monitors that and gets it right. Any concerns you might have been some great ideas we get from you all. The government of the people, by the people, and for the people and last i checked, it was not just us on congress. It was all of you all. Stay involved. Kamarck thank you, senator. [applause] tonight on cspan, a look at the role of satire with editorial cartoonists. The event was part of the george polk seminar at Long Island University in new york city and took laced three months after the terrorist shootings that Charlie Hebdo magazine in paris, france. Garry trudeau was one of the speakers. He talked about his own work and how it has been received. For the artist, its a form of quality control. If they run everything you do, you must be doing something wrong. It shows that you are still dangerous a little bit . Or that you touched a sore point for that particular community. Not all my strips made it into North Carolina papers. When i wrote about frank sinatra, i went ark in las vegas. Jerry brown, same thing in california. They are going to be regional. Recently, i did something about jed bush jed jeb bush and the dallas paper threw it out because it was too political. Two political . The man is running or president. You can watch the entire panel tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan. This sunday night at 8 00 eastern on first ladies influence an image, he will into the personal lives of three first ladies, and a harrison, Letitia Tyler. Anna harrison never set foot in the white house because her husband died after a month in office. Letitia tyler becomes first lady when her husband, Vice President john tyler assumes the presidency, but she passes away just a year and a half later. The president remarries julia tyler, who is the most photographed first lady. Anna harrison, Letitia Tyler and julia tyler, this sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on the spans original series first ladies influence an image, examining the public and private lives of the women who filled the position of first lady and their influence on the presidency from Martha Washington to Michelle ObamaAmerican History tv on cspan3. As a couple to the series, cspans new book. Its available as a hardcover or an ebook for your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. The Senate ForeignRelations Committee held a hearing this week on the future of u. S. Cuba relations as the countries continue negotiations toward establishing permanent diplomatic missions. Assistant secretary of state Roberta Jackson by Thomas Shannon to testify about policy objectives and ways to ensure human rights objectives are met. This is just over two hours. The Senate ForeignRelations Committee will come to order. Thank you guys. Thanks for your interest. Today well hear from the state departments assistant secretary for western Hemisphere Affairs on the strategy behind the president s significant shift in u. S. Policy towards cuba. Assistant secretary jacobson is joined at the witness table by the counsellor of the state Department AmbassadorThomas Shannon. We welcome you both. Cuba has been left behind politically and economically, a far cry from a time decades ago when it was among the most prosperous countries in the region. Administration administrations cuba policy initiative has been welcomed in latin america and the caribbean. But significant differences which well hear today of opinion exist in the United States over the extent to which change this change in policy will advance u. S. Interests and improve circumstances for the cuban people. Today we look forward to our witnesses to speak to how our nation can best engage strategically with the region and beyond to help cuba rejoin the mainstream of americas and offer its citizens the same rights and freedoms enjoyed by citizens of other countries in the region. To this end, our witnesses can help us understand that administrations policy goals. With regards to cuba. What do they intend to achieve in restoring full diplomatic relations and relaxing sanctions . We would also like to hear their assessment of what the cuban government goals are for engaging and this diplomatic process with the United States. Every policy initiative will inevitably come into contact with the reality that the cuban state and most importantly the cuban States Relationship with its own citizens have not yet changed. In truth, we have to define what a normal relationship with cuba looks like bilaterally. But also in the context of our relationship with the americas more broadly. Our overall relations with latin america and the caribbean have evolved significantly over past decades. The last unilateral u. S. Military intervention in the region occurred more than 20 years ago in haiti. U. S. Trade with latin america and the caribbean have more than doubled from 2000 to 2012. And the process of opening to increased trade with the United States and each other, latin american countries have taken steps to adopt market reforms and create more transparent legal and investment standards. The norm is for regular multiparty elections and more broadly interamerican institutions today reflect the commitment by the region to more democratic inclusive governments. The u. S. Relationship with latin america is very different than it was during the spanishamerican war in 1898 or during the cold war in 1959. This is the larger strategic context in which the way forward for our relations with cuba will be defined and we thank you both very much for being here. I look forward to the opening comments of our distinguished ranking member, senator carter. Senator carter well, thank you mr. Chairman. I certainly welcome our witnesses today. I thank you very much for conducting this hearing. Theres no question that the december 17th action by president obama and his historical speech marked a watershed moment in our relationships towards cube yachlt there are members of this committee who believe it went too far. There are members of this committee who think it didnt go far enough. But one thing i think is critically important is that we have a open Committee Hearing and discussion on these issues. Thats why i particularly thank the chairman for bringing forward this hearing so that we can engage a discussion on the new direction with cuba. On that date also we celebrate long overdue return to the United States of a maryland resident allen gross and mr. Chairman by consent i would ask that his statement be included in our record. Chairman corker without objection. Senator cardin we all are interested to hear from our witnesses that todays hearing provides an important opportunity to review the advances achieved under the administrations new cuba policy and understand that the strategy for moving forward. Without a doubt this is a complicated process and will take time to achieve the progress we want. I want to underscore that there is one issue that i think United States us even though we may have different views as to where we should move with the cuban policy. And that one area that i think unites every member of this committee and the United States senate is that we all stand together and our aspirations to see the cuban people have the opportunity to build a society where human rights and fundamental freedoms are respected and Democratic Values and political plural six tolerated and where individuals can work unobstructed to improve Living Conditions. This is particularly true with the afro cuban population. We also share concerns about the Critical Issues such as the cuban governments on going abuses of human rights and the presence of american fugitives in cuba, especially those wanted for the murder of u. S. Law enforcement. But the central question is how can we best advance the adds conspiraciations while also addressing the concerns . Our previous policy did not achieve the progress that we wanted to see. So a new approach is needed. They laid out a new path based on the believe that principled engagement brings new results. I think this is the right path to follow for the following reasons. First, for far too long the cuban government has used u. S. Policy as an excuse to justify its shortcomings and hardships of the cuban people. The cuban government xploided policy for diplomatic gains, focusing International Debate about what the u. S. Should do rather than about what cuba needs to do to better provide for its citizens. This has been a particular challenge here in our own hemisphere where governments and our closest partners preferred to speak out critically about the u. S. Policy rather than about the conditions on the island. The president s policy has reset the gee yoe political calculus in the region and will provide new opportunities for cooperation in our latin american and caribbean partners. The recent summit of the americas and panama showcase this point clearly and both president obama and u. S. Were praised widely for leadership. In one particular important development, the president s of costa rica and uruguay met with president obama in meeting with cuban dissidents. This was an incredibly important moment. It showed the international community. I want to thank senator boxer. Senator box her a chance to hear from mr. Costa that you invited to that hearing. I think that was an important point also. Such acts of seeing latin american president s meeting the u. S. President was unthinkable just six months ago. Second, despite differences we may have with the government our Foreign Policy should always endeavor to support the countrys people to the greatest degree possible. When president obama first came to office in 2009, he created greater flexibility for people to visit families if cuba and sent remitt enss to the islands. The early policy changes provided important support to the emerging entrepreneurs that have been able to launch new economic initiatives often working out of their own homes. The cuban government limits the activities widely and theyre not all able to take advantage of them, u. S. Policy is directly responsible for helping the cuban people improve Living Conditions and achieve new degree of independence from the cuban government. The december announcement went one step further and made it easier for u. S. Citizens to engage in travel from cube. Whether for democratic or philanthropic or business reasons, u. S. Citizens now have greater opportunities to take part in people to People Programs that provide increase interaction with the people of cuba. I have no doubt that the dynamism of the American Society will make a positive contribution to empowering the cuban people and provide them with the resources they need. While they make changes to travel regulation, there is some think that only congress can do. For that reason, i am a cosponsor of senator flakes freedom to travel to cuba act. I think we must do everything we can to promote robust ties between the citizens of the United States and cuba, and i hope well have the opportunity to discuss that bill during this hearing. Then third, the administrations new cuba policy will provide u. S. And especially our diplomats with new tools to engage directly with the cuban government to have principle and frank discussions about the issues we disagree about. And how we might Work Together to better have a common interest on resolving the interests. Every day our diplomats around the world demonstrate their ability to engage foreign governments and advance u. S. National interests. Its not unreasonable to think that well have a better chance to address the outstanding claims held by u. S. Citizens for proper confiscated by the cuban government or to secure the return of american fugitives to face justice in the United States if we actually engage in direct dialogue with the cuban government and articulate our demands. When it comes to issues of confronting counter narcotics trade or addressing migration issues, its a National Interest of both the United States and cuba to have channels of communication between our two governments. Diplomacy will make this possible. The cuban policy put the United States in the right path. We must remain clear eyed about several issues and we must continue to speak out about them. We cannot ignore the cuban governments record of human rights or human trafficking. Every month there are way too many cases where the cuban government jails political activists for what they believe in, what they say publicly. Freedom of expression must be central to all of our engagements with the cuban government. I know he led a human rights dialogue with the cuban