A half billion dollars for artificial snow in Cuba

The United States will spend $465 million beaming freedom signals to Cuba in 2007, and virtually no one will see or hear the U.S. propaganda, according to Vincent Parascandolo from the Center for International Policy. Parascandolo quotes Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who said in 2000, "For nine and a half million dollars in the coming fiscal year, $139 million over the last decade, another hundred million dollars over the next decade, we ask Cubans to get up in the middle of the night to watch snow on a blank screen. This makes no sense at all."

From Media Network weblog:

Vincent Parascandolo, a research assistant at the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC writes: “Of all the resources spent on US policy toward Cuba, Radio and TV Martí are probably two of the most egregious examples of wasted taxpayer money - nearly a half-billion dollars squandered on television and radio transmissions to the island and reaching virtually no audience.” In a commentary published in the Fort Lauderdale newspaper Sun-Sentinel, Parascandolo says that “TV Martí seems to be a matter of giving the BBG and its staff extra jobs and salaries, and pandering to voters in Miami, which helps win elections in Florida.”