[Puerto Rico] Governor: Tax cuts are No. 1 priority

Implementing tax breaks for the poor and middle class will be the New Progressive Party’s [NPP's] first order of business this year, Gov. Fortuño said after meeting Tuesday with the NPP legislative conference at La Fortaleza [the Governor's Mansion].

Fortuño said he expects to pass reform legislation during the second half of this year and taxpayers will first receive tax cuts in 2011 and more in 2012. The reform will eliminate income taxes for families that earn less than $20,000 annually, Fortuño and House Speaker Jenniffer González promised.

The tax cuts for will be fueled by “fostering work, rewarding success and pushing forward economic development, savings and investment,” Fortuño said after the meeting with NPP lawmakers along with Chief of Staff Marcos Rodríguez Ema.

To push the tax reform — which many other governors have attempted but failed to achieve — Fortuño appointed a task force made up of Treasury Secretary Juan Carlos Puig, Government Development Bank President Carlos García, Rodríguez Ema, and the chairmen of the House and Senate committees that deal with taxation.

Fortuño also announced he will move forward on the government, legislative and electoral reforms outlined in his 2008 campaign platform.

Next week Fortuño will file four bills — two in the House and two in the Senate — related to his administration’s government reform, he said.

Other priorities for the NPP lawmakers’ delegation include legislative and electoral reform. “We have scheduled a meeting for the beginning February in which we will be outlining our plans in general terms,” Fortuño said.

Fortuño also has been discussing long-term plans to establish a synchronous electrical grid throughout the Caribbean and Central America, working with officials in Washington, D.C.

“There are funds to achieve this grid,” Fortuño said. His said his aim is for Puerto Rico to become an energy exporter by expanding the island’s production of renewable energy.

Regardless of whether Congress is bound to act on results of a proposed status plebiscite, it is important that the people of Puerto Rico express themselves on status, “because the important thing is to resolve this matter,” Fortuño said.

“I want the people to be able to express themselves. [U.S.] House Resolution 2499 presents one way of doing this, but the important thing is that this matter be resolved. We want Congress to commit itself [to honoring plebiscite results], like the U.S. government, which has already done this through a letter [then] President-elect Barack Obama sent us,” he said.

The governor made the comments during a brief break in the meeting to announce that the House of Representatives would adopt Puerto Rico Senate Resolution 861 as “the official stance of the legislative assembly,” Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz said.

Rivera Schatz said the resolution would be presented to the House for a vote today to establish that the people of Puerto Rico “back a status referendum that does not have colonial nor territorial status options.”

“I believe [the results of a plebiscite] will represent the voice of all Puerto Ricans, which coincides with what Obama said about attending to this matter this term,” Rivera Schatz said.

Resolution 861, passed last week, calls for Obama to honor his promise to attend this term to the island’s status issue with democratic, non-colonial options. The resolution states that residents have a right as U.S. citizens to enjoy political equality and the right to self determination, rejects Puerto Rico’s current “colonial” status and calls for a decolonization process that would include non-colonial status formulas that would be binding with the U.S. Congress.

A win for statehood in a plebiscite would better position him for re-election, Fortuño has said.

Included among the issues lawmakers said they would raise with the governor are Rep. José Chico’s wish to discuss and resolve what he perceives to be Fortuño’s lack of communication with party lawmakers, and Chico and Rep. Antonio Silva’s call for the governor to veto a bill filed in the House that would legalize slot machines in businesses other than casinos, which hoteliers estimate will cost them an estimated $11.4 million a year in lost revenue.

Prior to the meeting, Rep. Angel Pérez said he wanted to warn the governor not to rely solely on the $6.2 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds as the sole means to jumpstart Puerto Rico’s economy, but also focus on other economic stimuli such as expediting Public Private Alliances and changes to the island’s permits law.

Sen. Lucy Arce said she would raise the issue of outstanding overtime and sick day payments for police, to which she attributed the problem of Puerto Rico’s rising crime.

Cut them loose - unless they earn “from US sources” they pay no US taxes....

End the last vestiges of US coloninalizm, force independance on them - then see how well they do....

Uh, they’re American citizens, have been for decades. We can’t really force them out.

And they’re not a colony. They had several chances to vote for independence and they all failed miserably.

You’re acting like their situation is their fault and not that of the US governments. It was the government that offered them citizenship without having to pay federal taxes. Who the hell wouldn’t take that deal??? What are you saying, that they were dumb enough to say yes to this deal offered on a golden platter?

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