$24 Million Wasted on Cuban Propaganda Plane

Every day for the last six years, an airplane has flown over Cuba with the intention of beaming American propaganda into Cuban TV programming. The program has cost the U.S. government more than $24 million and, because of the Cuban government's efforts to keep its broadcast signal closed, only about 1 percent of people on the island can see the American-sponsored broadcasts. The U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, which runs the program, has been trying to get Congress to give it up for the last two years, but now across-the-board budget cuts might finally force the anti-Cuban legislators that have kept AeroMarti alive to give in. Sequestration has grounded the plane in Georgia for now, but the House and Senate Appropriations Committee will eventually have to decide whether AeroMarti will ever fly again.