The Republican and Democratic parties have used Puerto Rico as a political football for decades and it needs to stop.

 

Puerto Rico doesn’t have time for petty political games. The story of its economic turmoil is a tragedy filled with corruption and horrible financial mismanagement. If Puerto Rico were a U.S. state, its per capita gross domestic product would make it the poorest one.

 

Because of its financial hardships, around 446,000 Puerto Ricans left the island for the mainland between 2005 and 2015. In 2016, the government announced the closing of 179 public schools, and almost 58 percent of children were living in poverty. Puerto Rico’s physical and public health infrastructures were crumbling, and it had the worst drinking water quality of any U.S. state/territory – to the point where there were several court orders demanding an end to sewage leaks from wastewater plants that violated the Clean Water Act.  

 

Worse, Puerto Rico had racked up $72 billion in debt over the years, due in large part to a long recession caused by the end of a manufacturing tax credit. So, by 2016 it was undeniable: The Puerto Rican government was essentially bankrupt. However, since Puerto Rico is not a U.S. state, it did not have access to Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code so, in exchange for granting Puerto Rico a legal remedy to restructure public debt, the U.S. Congress passed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act of 2016 (PROMESA), which established the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico (FOMB).​ The FOMB had seven members appointed by President Obama and one ex officio member chosen by the Governor of Puerto Rico and was “tasked with working with the people and Government of Puerto Rico to create the necessary foundation for economic growth and to restore opportunity to the people of Puerto Rico.”

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… and this was all before Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm on September 20, 2017. ​