"Free Trade" between US and Cuba

Out of all the days to be busy at work, today, when all of the announcements about Cuba started to circulate and my phone kept buzzing with tweets, texts and Facebook updates.  First and foremost, trading 3 Cuban Terrorist for Alan Gross, who was incarcerated for “acts against the independence or the territorial integrity of the state" in March 2011. This is a travesty!  How can we let these people off after the crimes they have committed! Although the Obama administration would try to have us believe that freeing Gross and the 3 Cuban spies were independent of each other[1], it is highly unlikely that was the case.  We are setting a dangerous precedent.

Though I truly wish that I could one day visit Cuba and see the and where my grandparents married and started their family, as well as my wife’s family, I think that Obama’s decision today will ultimately cause more harm than it does good.  If we look at Venezuela, we see a government that is structured similarly to that of Cuba’s today, but with more money/resources.  By “opening up” these talks, we will be making the Cuban government wealthier, while the Cuban people will continue to struggle.  

Yes, the same Cuban government that my grandparents and my mom fled from on a boat, leaving behind everything they had worked for and their lives.  The same Cuban government, which had people threaten my wife’s grandfather that they would send him to “El Paredon” (wall where they line you up and shoot you via firing squad) just because he was outspoken and opposed the new regime.  The same Cuban government, which orphaned many children and widowed many wives.  The same Cuban government that forced tens of thousands of people to risk their lives by trying to float 90 miles to freedom in makeshift rafts.  That government is the one that will benefit, NOT the people!

I would love to see the land where my wife’s family, as well as my mom’s, comes from.  However, I will not be stepping foot on this island until is completely free.  I understand that many people will argue that Obama’s actions will ultimately be helping out the Cuban people on the island, it will not.

The reaction of the Cuban community in Miami is not one of just stubbornness, or Old School vs. New School, or even Republicans vs. Democrats, rather,  it is about standing up for what we believe is right and not giving in to a regime that has murdered so many and will not change the way they have operated for more than 50 years!

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[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/17/obama-says-alan-gross-wasnt-traded-for-cuban-spies-thats-a-very-tough-sell/

Minimum Wage

Lately, there are a myriad of issues and concerns arose regarding minimum wage.  As of January 2014, minimum wage in the state of Florida is $7.93 an hour (not counting tipped employees).  Due to the recent upsurge of liberals in office continuously fighting to raise the minimum wage, some conservatives are being seen as out of touch, only looking out for the rich, or even worse, nonchalant about the strife of hardworking Americans.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Instead of just refuting these erroneous statements, let me first explain what I feel the paramount conflicts are:

1.     Liberals claim that minimum wage is not enough for the public to adequately provide for their families.  This is where one of the first issues lies. People should not be supporting their families on minimum wage; rather, minimum wage-paying jobs should be utilized by the younger population (such as high school and college students) to earn additional spending money.  Instead of concentrating on increasing the minimum wage so people could provide for their families, let’s concentrate on increasing their earning potential.  Instead of just giving people an additional couple of dollars an hour, let’s instead concentrate on utilizing that money to improve people’s marketable skills and even more importantly, to bring jobs to the community.

2.     If we increase the minimum wage, people will earn more, therefore eradicating poverty.  This seems pretty straight forward: $2 more an hour will equate to $80 more a week, or $4,160 a year.  However, it is not as simple as that.  Once businesses are required to increase the minimum wage, a couple of things may happen in order to offset the increase in wages: 

a.     The business will be forced to lower the hours of some of their employees – Business owners may decide to cut the hours of their employees in order to stay at the same level of revenue as they were at before.  Fewer hours for employees means less purchasing power for them, which may lead to them being in the same situation or worse than before.

b.     The business will have to increase the price of the product/service they offer – In order to keep revenues at the same previous level, the business owner may be required to increase prices.  If prices for goods begin increasing across the board, then this will just offset the increase in the minimum wage.

c.      The business may have to lay people off in order to be able to afford the increase in wages – If people are laid off by the business owner, it will not only put some people in a worse financial situation than before, but it will also cause a new strain in government welfare and unemployment funds.

d.     The business can potentially close its doors – If the business closes, then various people will suffer, including the owners as well as the initial people that the minimum wage increase was trying to help.

As you can see, the crusade to increase minimum wage by the liberals, though probably being sought after for the right intentions, will not really benefit the general population.  This will be a temporary improvement at best, if people even benefit at all.  Conservatives, with the best intentions in mind as well, are trying to resolve the issue long term.  Again, let us focus on fixing the actual issue, which is not “minimum wage is too low” but rather that people are trying to support their families on minimum wage.  Let us focus on how to improve.

What are your thoughts on minimum wage, and how to fix it?

Immigration Reform

While at the Leadership Institute, I had the pleasure of meeting many interesting people.  One of them was Brad Young, from Stone Mountain, GA.  He was very passionate about politics and standing up for the issues.  While he addressed the class, I learned about his story.  He emigrated from Canada at the age of 4 and has been a Georgia resident since.  Please feel free to go to his website to learn more about Brad, http://www.bradyoung.us.

While on break during one of the sessions, Brad and I started talking about immigration and how this hot topic could be fixed.  Right now, especially after the media got a hold of Jeb Bush’s comments and twisted them, it is important for many of us, especially those who are either immigrants, or the sons of immigrants, to stand together and come up with good solutions in order to implement them and make this a non-issue.  But what is the right approach? 

The first thing many people bring up is amnesty.  Putting it simply, amnesty for illegal aliens forgives their acts of illegal immigration and forgives other related illegal acts such as driving and working with false documents. The result of an amnesty is that large numbers of foreigners who entered the United States illegally are rewarded with legal status (Green Card) for breaking immigration law.  One of the main issues with this approach is that it rewards those who came and did whatever they wanted, instead of following the rules.  Many immigrants, such as my parents, came to this country legally and did not work until they had a work visa.  We came to this country with enough savings to be able to survive.  This approach is obviously not feasible every time, as many immigrants come to the United States for better economic opportunities or fleeing an oppressive government.  So what should we do then? Should the country that was founded by immigrants, built by immigrants, and which was once synonymous with the Emma Lazarus quote “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” just kick all illegal immigrants out? 

Rather than an all or nothing approach, we discussed doing some sort of phased approach.  One suggestion was having all illegal immigrants register with the US without the fear of deportation, unless they have been arrested before or have some disqualifying factors.  Next, the government would give them a work permit and allow them to start working and paying taxes, perhaps while also paying an extra fee as an immigrant attempting to gain legal status.  After a set amount of time, they could gain legal resident status, then they could proceed to apply for citizenship according to the existing process.  This process would also only apply to people who apply for the program by the specific date, in order to discourage additional illegal immigrants from continuing to illegally cross our border thinking that they will be eventually forgiven, and encourage immigration through the proper channels.

What are your thoughts on dealing with immigration?

The Leadership Institute and being a Conservative

On March 31^st, I had the pleasure of attending the Leadership Institute’s Campaign Management School in Arlington, VA.  After finishing the 4 day course, I was nothing but impressed with the professionalism of the staff and the incredible amount of knowledge that was shared with all who attended.  The class was a diverse group. Including people who flew in from Alaska, Florida and even one student from Nigeria!  The class was also comprised of a few people who are currently running or planning on running for office, future campaign managers and congressional staffers.  I not only learned a lot in the class, but I was able to make some great connections and met a lot of interesting people who shared many of the same beliefs. 

The lecturers were extremely insightful, helping everyone in the class to figure out how to better run a campaign, successfully organize volunteers, involve the community and so on.  Although all of the lectures taught us a lot, a few of them stuck out.  These included the talk given to us by Morton Blackwell, president and founder of the Leadership Institute, which taught us how to deal with bad media/information during the campaign.  Paulo Sibaja’s lecture on building coalitions and grassroots movement was also extremely engaging.  Paulo was very knowledgeable and entertaining, full of stories and examples.  Lastly, Matthew Hurtt’s lecture on earned media was very educational and the speaker went above and beyond to make sure that all the attendees were engaged and learned the most from the class.  Matt’s experience was very impressive, including the fact that he ran for public office at the age of 19 in his hometown. 

LI, as it is commonly referred, prided itself in being a school to help train young Conservatives, regardless of party affiliation.  Their mission is simple; “…to increase the number and effectiveness of conservative activists and leaders in the public policy process.” We even had a classmate that was an independent!  J  After getting out of class one day, I reflected on why I was a Conservative, and even more importantly, what does it mean to be a conservative.  After thinking about it for a while, I concluded that my definition of a conservative is a simple one:  A person that believes that economic freedom, limited government involvement, a strong national defense and the traditional American values.  I understand that there a lot more issues that help define conservatism, but this is my generic version.  My next question was “Why am I a conservative?”  I believe that was simple to answer.  I believe that the way for America to regain its strength and get back to the top is through the values held by conservatives.  If the government continues to step in and try to overstep its boundaries, like in the case of the Affordable Healthcare Act, better known as Obamacare, then we will not be able to continue to move “forward” like we should.

Really Rick Sanchez?

So in 2010, Rick Sanchez got fired from CNN for making comments regarding Jon Stewart (calling him a "bigot").  The Hialeah native, who was born in Guanabacoa, Cuba, stated recently that Venezuela is not a priority of Obama's because the media does not care.  I am the first to admit that I am not a big fan of Obama or his agenda.  However, to say that the reason Venezuela is not being addressed is because of lack of media interest is extremely ridiculous!

In my humble opinion, this is a bit ludicrous.  I am not saying that Venezuela, is at the forefront of most issues in the minds of American citizens, however, neither is Crimea, Ukraine or Russia.  I am the first to admit that we have plenty of domestic issues that need to be addressed first, such as jobs, the economy, homelessness, etc.  Throughout the history of the US, we have been seen as the beacon of democracy, sometimes even the police force for the world.  Though democracy may not be the best form of government for every country out there, it is definitely a much better form of government than tyrannical and oppressive forms of government, such as the ones being seen in Cuba, North Korea and of course, Venezuela.  This is reminiscent of the Cold War days, when Russia was trying to spread communism throughout the world and the US tried to stop it by all means necessary.

How can a Cuban born, South Florida raised individual see what is going on in Venezuela, and even what is continuing to happen in Cuba, and say that it is of no importance to the media?  Rick Sanchez, you are the media, and if you are all dismissing it, it will not get the attention it deserves.  If every news outlet continues to "ignore" it, then nothing will get done.  Obama is not ignoring Venezuela because the media does not care, frankly he may not care about the rest of the Western Hemisphere.

Rick, as the son of immigrants that fled the Castro regime and had to start over in this country, as well as seeing the Cuban people continue to be oppressed for over five decades, I expected more from you.  Please prove me wrong.

What is really happening in Venezuela

By now, it is hard for people not to realize that there is a civil up rest in Venezuela.  With the constant #SOSVenezuela and #PrayforVenezuela hashtags on twitter on Facebook, plus many politicians and even actors during the Academy Awards making their stance known, it is hard for people not to realize that there are issues going on.  But what exactly is going on?  Is it just a bunch of students protesting for lower tuition?  Workers protesting for higher wages?  It goes much deeper than that.

On January 6^th, 2014, Former Miss Venezuela and her ex husband, Monica Spear, were killed near Valencia, Venezuela.  Protests began shortly after that.  On February 1^st, opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez (a Princeton and Harvard educated man[i]), asked the Venezuelan University students to peacefully protest.  Students begin to be arrested and the government accuses the protestors of being violent.  The government issues an arrest warrant for Lopez

 On February 12^th, the day Venezuelans celebrate Youth Day, University students and opposition party members took to the streets in order to protest against the current Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro, the current “elected” president of Venezuela.  The protest revolves around the Venezuelan people demanding:

1.     Better security (According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report, Venezuela’s Murder rate per 100,000 people is 45.1[ii], the highest in South America and 4^th overall in the world),

2.     Shortage of goods that are reminiscent to many Cuban exiles in Miami of the days when they spent hours in line[iii] on the island trying to get a loaf of bread. 

3.     Freedom of speech.  Over the last few years, the government has slowly shut down TV, newspapers and radio stations.  During these protests, news correspondents have been threatened and kicked out of the country[iv]

The protests have now been going on for a little while.  Venezuela is at a very crucial point.  The government is getting help, as it has been for quite some time, from Cuba and the Castro brothers.  There are plenty of reports of Cuban troops assisting the government, using their experience in suppressing the opposition and operating as a socialist country.  If the opposition stops now, it is all over for Venezuela.  Maduro and his regime have operated as a government that has been legitimately elected, but with the opposition going as far as they have, and making waves across the world, the government, under the advisement of Cuba, would have no choice now but to completely keep oppressing the opposition to ensure that they stay in power.

Keep fighting Venezuela, it will be a tough battle, but one worth fighting for a beautiful country I once called home.

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[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopoldo_Lopez

[ii] https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/Homicide_statistics2013.xls

[iii] http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1102546

[iv] http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/21/world/americas/venezuela-cnn-journalists-expelled/