Posted on 05/02/2016 10:27:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Later this week or next, Congress will take up legislation to rescue the commonwealth of Puerto Rico from its financial crisis that is getting worse by the day.
Puerto Rico faces more than $70 billion of debt and the government is already in technical default on many of its bonds. Billions more come due in weeks ahead and the government says they are out of money to repay.
These debts don’t even include an additional $43.2 billion of unfunded pension liabilities. Add it all together and the debt reaches at least 150 percent of GDP. That’s a lot of weight on the shoulders of the Puerto Rican people. All the government has done is raise taxes, with the sales tax recently hiked from 7.5 to 11 percent. Tragically, Puerto Rico has become the Detroit of the Caribbean.
By law Puerto Rico can’t declare bankruptcy but the territory is in de facto chapter 9 already.
Republicans in the House have drafted a rescue plan that would allow the island to restructure its debt and delay payments as it attempts to rebuild its shattered economy. The statistics are heartbreakingly bleak: almost half the residents are in poverty (and more than half of all children), only about 40 percent of adults are even in the workforce, half of families collect welfare benefits, and more than 10 percent of the island’s residents have left for Florida, Texas, New York, or other safe havens.
Puerto Ricans are American citizens whose lives have been turned upside down. The U.S. government has a moral, if not legal, obligation to help. But as a territory Puerto Rico needs to agree to help itself.
Here is what shouldn’t happen: a financial cash bailout from U.S. taxpayers. Puerto Rico is 100 percent responsible for all of its taxes and spending
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Bring in Chinese?
How are you going to get millions of Chinese o move there?
Easy, replace all the Mexiricans with Asians
Didn’t the GOP legislature and governor in Michigan already put together a fairly decent model for Detroit?
. . . or sign a long-term lease for it to the Chinese in exchange for debt write-off plus cash.
Quit speaking Spanish.
LOL! That was my first thought!
Exactly! And get rid of the indigeonous population at the same time. Years ago, my company used to have our annual sales meeting in Hawaii. One year, we decided to go to SanJuan instead. Let me tell you, San Juan IS NOT Honolulu! We returned to Hawaii the next year and never went bsck to Puerto Rico.
You folks nailed my answer right out of the gate, which is not surprising around here.
Will never happen. The left has turned “hispanics” into a solid voting and contributing block. The left will never allow PR to become a free market island where hard work is rewarded and indolence is punished.
“The U.S. government has a moral, if not legal, obligation to help”.
The US government has neither.
L
>>Years ago, my company used to have our annual sales meeting in Hawaii. One year, we decided to go to SanJuan instead. Let me tell you, San Juan IS NOT Honolulu! We returned to Hawaii the next year and never went bsck to Puerto Rico.
A dozen or so years ago, I went along with the wife to a conference at a resort hotel a little west of San Juan. We of course visited San Juan, and I rented a car one day and drove out into the countryside to engage in some geek tourism - checking out the radiotelescope at Arecibo.
We had a nice enough time, I suppose, but my overall summary of the trip - I am uncomfortable in a place where the locals are buying wrought iron fences and security bars, and razor wire, by the metric ton. Oh, and especially so when I am unarmed.
If the author's solution is to strip PR of it's autonomy and do the same, while stripping Puerto Ricans of their citizenship and forbidding them to emigrate to the US, I'd say he has a plan. Politically impossible, but nevertheless interesting.
The real solution is to pay nothing, give the island independence and remove citizenship from free-loading Puerto Ricans.
Let them go to the IMF or re-negotiate a loan package like Argentina.
It’s called “Marxism”.
People like me warned the people of Puerto Rico not to implement it.
And we were laughed at, mocked, made fun of, given the finger and called “racists”.
So now that it’s turning out the way we said it would, the Puerto Ricans are pissed off and demanding that we bail them out.
And our leaders will, because we elected Marxists.
So it’s Monday in Obamaland....
If only they could vote, obammy would write them a check. Heck, he’ll write the check anyway if only to waste tax dollars.
The US should lease out part of Puerto Rico and use it for bombing practice. Wait...what?
My father and I had this conversation a few weeks ago before he passed away. We were watching TV and he said from his death bed, “know what’s wrong with Puerto Rico?” I knew what he was going to say, but smiled and let him give me the punchline. “Too many Puerto Ricans.”
When I went to Puerto Rica, I brought my handgun.
It was common sense; the place appeared to be teeming with some type of Mexican, which I found out later were called “Puerto Ricans”.
We went to the island of Vieqes, where it seemed every single person was on welfare.
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