A large part of Cuba went dark Sunday night. The electricity was still off Monday morning and no explanation was made to the public that reached the United States.

Cuba’s weather has been calm. Power failed because Cuba’s infrastructure is ancient and inadequate. It can’t be brought up to snuff because the Cuban economy is too weak. 

The United States can help its island neighbor. Not by sending money, but by sending tourists and opening up trade. 

It is true that Cuba still clings to communism — a fact which makes it a curiosity as well as an ideological dinosaur. It is not true that it represents a threat to the United States. Its 11 million people live in poverty, which would be greatly relieved if it could regain its standing as a winter-time vacation destination for Americans and could once again sell sugar to the U.S. market.

Because of the large population of former Cubans in Florida, which remains virulently anti-Castro and clings to the impossible dream of regaining property lost in the revolution, the U.S. Congress has refused to drop the Cold War sanctions adopted decades ago when the U.S.S.R. shipped missiles to Cuba and caused an international crisis.

War was avoided because President John F. Kennedy stood firm and the Kremlin backed down.

That was 60 long years ago.  And 27 years later the Berlin Wall was hammered down and the U.S.S.R. fell apart. The Communist threat evaporated. The only reason that U.S. policy toward Cuba did not evaporate along with the Soviet empire was Florida politics.

But Florida politics is changing. The generation of Cuban expatriates who fled Cuba is dying off. The succeeding generation is American through and through. A growing number of them want the U.S. to have normal relations with Cuba. 

It is long past time for Congress and the president to move out of our 1962 mindset and treat our Cuban neighbors — like neighbors.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.

Rep. Tim Huelskamp  of the Kansas First District — where many Kansas farmers live — is one of the reasons Congress didn’t pass a farm bill before it went on vacation last month. Rep. Huelskamp  wants to cut the food stamp allocation of about $72 billion by $33 billion — nearly in half. That’s about twice the reduction the Senate had already approved. 

While Huelskamp  belongs to the radical right fringe in Congress, he is not alone in his desire to cut back the cost of the five-year farm bill, which will reach nearly a trillion dollars when it finally becomes law.

It is his decision to attack the food stamp allocation, which will draw wide-ranging opposition, primarily from non-farm legislators.

Food stamps and the school lunch programs are in the farm bill for strategical reasons. Farm state legislators long ago saw the wisdom of paying for those two programs through the ag budget: they are important to every community in every state in the nation. They also are an important part of our nation’s way of giving basic assistance to low-income families. There are about 47 million on the food stamp rolls. Every school district has a subsidized lunch program. 

Cutting food stamps in half would take food off the tables of millions of men, women and children unless the program were funded in some other way. Putting the food assistance programs in the farm bill made the spending seem essential to members of Congress who know nothing about agriculture and don’t identify with farmers.

This is not to say the farm bill can’t be cut or shouldn’t be. Farm commodity prices are high. Farmers can make a good living in today’s economy. Perhaps the vastly improved world market for grain, poultry and beef will continue and subsidies will no longer be necessary. And a good case can be made for ending subsidies to the ethanol industry.

But it will always be good business for government to subsidize crop insurance to provide a safety net when drought and other natural disasters strike. It is in the long- term interest of every national economy, including ours, to subsidize conservation measures and build dams to curb floods and store water against drought. 

No one can argue against the value of continuing the research at our universities that has made it possible for so few farmers to feed so many such nutritious food here and around the world.

That said, the farm bill can be reduced by billions by trimming back the benefits that now go to huge farm operations or to absentee land owners and by making certain payments are reduced when high commodity prices make them illogical.

Those are the kinds of reforms the Huelskamps in Congress should be pursuing.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.