Puerto Rico Needs A Repeal, Relief and Release of Debt

PUERTO RICO NEEDS A REPEAL, RELIEF AND RELEASE OF DEBT

Bernie Sanders introduced a bill on November 28th in Congress to provide Puerto Rico’s with the much needed support to rebuild with a $146 billion relief plan (https://theintercept.com/2017/11/28/bernie-sanders-puerto-rico-elizabeth...). Whether we are aware of it or not, it is really our responsibility as people of conscience to support this bill, because the people of Puerto Rico do not have the ability to do so for themselves. Yes, it is true that Puerto Ricans on the island have citizenship status, which allows them to vote for local officials, and they have a single representative in Congress with no voting power, but they cannot vote for the president. So, effectively the citizens on the island of Puerto Rico have no federal representation, while citizens on the mainland actually have more say in what happens to Puerto Rico than Puerto Ricans do themselves.
Prior to Hurricane Maria hitting the island according to the 2016 U.S. Census the average income per capita for a little less than half of the island under $15,000 while the other half earned up to $19,000 with small pockets of the population earning $25,000 and above (https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-17.html), by contrast Mississippi which according to the U.S. Census is the poorest state in the nation has a median income of $36,919 (http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/20/news/economy/income-states-poverty/index...). Bearing this in mind consider also that Puerto Ricans pay about 1/3 more than the average American for their goods because of the Jones Act, which requires that goods shipped between U.S. ports be shipped on U.S. owned ships and crewed by U.S. personnel. As a result, the cost of shipping goods to Puerto Rico is more costly to the shippers and ultimately the cost is passed on to the Puerto Rican consumer (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/hurricane-puerto-rico-jones-a...). Here we have the poorest citizens in the U.S. having to pay more for their goods, which according to two University of Puerto Rico economists estimated that from 1990 – 2010 the island lost approximately $17 billion from it’s economy.
Now couple this with the fact that the U.S. had instituted a tax-free program for industries to come to Puerto Rico in 1976; this created jobs but over time it caused loss of tax revenue and the law was repealed in 1996. As a result, companies started to leave the island, which, in turn, caused a depopulation of the island’s workers causing a reduction in taxpayer roles. The plot thickens when you have Puerto Rico receiving less than 15% of what U.S. states receive for Medicaid and they are excluded from Supplementary Security Income (SSI). To subsidize the loss of tax revenue and to supplement Medicaid, Puerto Rico took out loans to try to keep afloat, putting them in debt for $70 billion, until there would some kind of economy shift (www.businessinsider.com/puerto-rico-debt-2017-10). The economic shift came not as hoped for, but in the shape of Hurricane Maria.
Puerto Rico needs relief, but more than that, Puerto Rico needs justice to have better representation, whether by statehood or independence. The island also needs to have the opportunity to recover from this devastating blow, and to start with, all power should be restored to reignite their economy. The Jones Act must be repealed so the poorest of the nation aren’t unjustly burdened. They need a relief package that includes rebuilding an infrastructure that does not rely on imported fossil fuels (which it does now, and with all the sun that Puerto Rico has, this only makes common sense), and they should be released from their debt.