{"id":69678,"date":"2016-06-10T07:30:49","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T11:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=69678"},"modified":"2016-06-10T00:12:14","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T04:12:14","slug":"house-passes-bill-to-help-puerto-rico-handle-its-118-billion-in-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=69678","title":{"rendered":"House Passes Bill to Help Puerto Rico Handle its $118 Billion in Debt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Richard<\/a>
Richard Hanna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

U.S. Representative Richard Hanna last night voted in favor of a bill to prevent a taxpayer bailout for Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) is the House\u2019s bipartisan legislation that addresses the fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico and prevents a taxpayer bailout for the island. Because Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, it is ultimately Congress\u2019s responsibility\u2014as the Constitution says. The goals of PROMESA are to protect American taxpayers, stop Puerto Rico\u2019s debt crisis from becoming a major humanitarian disaster, and put Puerto Rico on a path to recovery.<\/p>\n

The Puerto Rican government is $118 billion dollars in debt in the form of bonds and unfunded pension liabilities. It has no way of paying it back nor intention of doing so. Earlier this year, the Puerto Rican government passed a debt payment moratorium. Last month, Puerto Rico\u00a0defaulted on a $422 million loan, exacerbating the financial crisis in the U.S. territory. A huge debt payment of\u00a0$2 billion is due on July 1<\/span>, which the government will likely default on. The implications of this default could be felt across U.S. markets\u2014including threatening the retirement and pension accounts of all U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bipartisan agreement was struck to solve Puerto Rico\u2019s staggering debt crisis and puts the U.S. territory on a path to fiscal sustainability while preventing a future taxpayer bailout,\u201d Rep Hanna said. \u201cPuerto Rico\u2019s slow recovery from the Great Recession combined with poor management of government resources and excessive government regulations have already caused them to default on a major debt payment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI supported PROMESA because instead of providing Puerto Rico with a bailout, it compels the territory to get on more sound financial footing without excusing its debt obligations,\u201d Rep. Hanna said. \u201cIt has no cost to federal taxpayers, empowers the oversight board to implement significant spending reforms and fairly protects the claims of creditors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legislation has three major components:<\/p>\n

Debt-restructuring:\u00a0PROMESA gives territories the ability to access certain debt-restructuring provisions. This is specifically amended under the territories and insular affairs section of the U.S. code, so no states can have access to these provisions. This means states will not gain access to debt-restructuring provisions, which protects against a dangerous precedent. Giving Puerto Rico the ability to restructure its debt in an orderly way is the best chance for creditors to get paid what they are owed and protect the U.S. bond market.<\/p>\n

Oversight board:\u00a0The legislation institutes an oversight board appointed by Congress and the White House that will have major authority over the debt-restructuring process, beginning with auditing the financial records of the government. This will bring transparency and order to the current chaos on the island. The oversight board will also make sure that Puerto Rico makes real, lasting reforms so that Puerto Rico never gets into this situation again. For example, the oversight board will enforce balanced budgets if the Puerto Rican government fails to do so.<\/p>\n

Pro-growth reforms:\u00a0The bill provides Puerto Rico with flexibility on the youth minimum wage in order to spur job creation and economic growth on the island. It also exempts Puerto Rico from the\u00a0new harmful overtime pay regulations, which would have had a detrimental impact on jobs. PROMESA institutes a taskforce to provide a report giving recommendations on ways to grow Puerto Rico\u2019s economy and fix the current federal law that is hindering growth.<\/p>\n

Read more details on the legislation\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Representative Richard Hanna last night voted in favor of a bill to prevent a taxpayer bailout for Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) is the House\u2019s bipartisan legislation that addresses the fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico and prevents a taxpayer bailout for the island. Because Puerto Rico is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23811,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-i7Q","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Hanna-for-web.jpg?fit=226%2C216&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}