Three-and-a-half million people live in Puerto Rico, and they're all about to start passing that copper collection plate around the island.
At the brink of a catastrophic $73 billion debt crisis, Puerto Rico's commonwealth government is asking U.S. lawmakers to grant Puerto Rico the bankruptcy protections that are already afforded to U.S. states. Since Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, isn't a full-fledged state, the island's mayors and legislators are limited in their ability to restructure their various, unserviceable debts.
The U.S. Congress has the final say, and Republican lawmakers are weary of approving "a bailout" for Puerto Rico, which has suffered a recession and the contraction of its manufacturing sector since 2006.
U.S. presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush have announced their support for Puerto Rico's right to restructure its own debts. "Congress should provide Puerto Rico the same authority that states already have to enable severely distressed government entities, including municipalities and public corporations, to restructure their debts," Clinton said yesterday in a campaign press statement.
The debt crisis, which has been ongoing for more than a year now, underscores the peril of Puerto Rico's dependence on U.S. lawmakers—a subservience that native Puerto Rican revolutionaries have challenged for nearly a century. "Puerto Ricans are Americans," author Nelson A. Denis told Mother Jones earlier this year. "The current status of commonwealth is just morally, politically, and especially economically untenable."
