Member of Congress warns that promises of 'free' services can cost freedom, citing Cuban experience

A member of Congress who said they were born in Cuba opened by thanking 'Lisa' and recounting how their family fled the island with "$10 and a watch." They said that personal experience living under communism informs their view that promises of free housing, health care and other services risk citizens' liberty.

"There is nothing for free," the speaker said, arguing that people who accept promises of guaranteed services pay the price with their freedom. The law and practice in Cuba were cited as examples: the speaker said initial promises to hold elections after rebuilding the country never materialized and that later shifts consolidated single-party rule.

The speech quoted Fidel Castro's 1959 Meet the Press remarks in which Castro denied being a communist, and referenced a later 1961 statement in which Castro identified as "a Marxist-Leninist." The member said those developments were followed by censorship, political imprisonment, confiscated property and restrictions on free speech and assembly.

The speaker pointed to legal text cited in the remarks, saying Article 5 of the 1976 and 2019 Cuban constitutions enshrined the Communist Party as the "superior driving force," and that a penal-code provision described in the remarks penalizes certain actions challenging the constitutional order with "4 to 10 years" of deprivation of liberty. The member characterized those legal measures as mechanisms that criminalize dissent.

The address concluded with an emotional appeal: "If you fall for it, at the end, you will pay for it with one thing, your freedom," and the member yielded back.