By Randall Mikkelsen

 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush is unlikely to take new steps to punish Cuba for recent
 dissident jailings when he marks Cuban Independence Day on Tuesday, but his government is still
 considering a response, administration officials and anti-Castro activists said.

 The Bush administration was wary of some suggested steps, such as a ban on cash remittances to
 Cuban families from relatives in the United States, officials said. That is due to concerns the move could
 make humanitarian conditions worse and do little to weaken Cuban President Fidel Castro's communist
 government.

 But the administration is discussing ways to aid pro-democracy forces, such as boosting broadcasts
 from the United States or giving communications equipment such as fax machines to dissidents, an
 activist said. It was also seeking to rally additional international opposition against Castro.

 "To my way of thinking anyway, it's difficult to overcome the humanitarian implications of a cut-off of
 remittances," one State Department official said on Monday. "It's hard to say to somebody 'You can't send
 $50 a month to your mother'."

 Said an anti-Castro activist: "Everything that I'm being told is not to expect any kind of major policy
 initiatives (on Tuesday). We're not unhappy with that. I think we need to avoid reactive and predictable
 steps that maybe run counter to what our actual interests are." Bush is to mark the 101st anniversary of
 Cuban independence from Spain -- a major rallying date for anti-Castro Cuban-Americans -- by meeting
 former Cuban political prisoners and relatives of current prisoners at the White House.

 The meeting comes only weeks after Cuba jailed some 75 dissidents in its harshest crackdown in
 decades. Cuba's government has called the crackdown and prison sentences of six to 28 years a
 defense against U.S. "mercenaries."

 "We will highlight the brutal repressive nature of this regime," a U.S. official said of the Tuesday's White
 House event.

 Although banning cash remittances would have an immediate impact on Cuba's struggling economy, the
 payments -- estimated to be as much as $1 billion a year -- are a vital source of income for many Cubans
 coping with economic hardship since the collapse of the Soviet Union.