By Brenda Flanagan
Correspondent
“People are leaving by the tens of thousands,” said Jose Velasquez, a member of the National Puerto Rican Agenda Steering Committee.
Velasquez says life in Puerto Rico’s gotten so hard, its economy so crushed by $72 billion of debt that 50,000 islanders have already bailed to look for work on the mainland. The island’s closed hospitals and schools, raised sales taxes, laid people off. But a third of every tax dollar here goes to pay interest on their debt. The impact — where 46 percent of folks already live below the poverty line — is catastrophic.
“Right now, I have my own nephew who is working at Wendy’s in North Dakota. Even those who come to Florida now are jobless when they get to Florida, and they’re living in their cars,” Velasquez said.
“For every individual that migrates here, they’re going to look for services. This is going to impact our safety net. I have family there still, and you know, when they have a problem, I have a problem,” said Assemblywoman Annette Quijano.
Quijano joined a roundtable of New Jersey community leaders looking for answers. One bipartisan option — the so-called Promesa Bill — passed the House in a landslide June 9. It spends no tax dollars on bailouts, appoints an oversight board to restructure Puerto Rico’s debt, but doesn’t let the local government seek Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection.
“Some promises are like Band-Aids. We need more than just a promise. The people of Puerto Rico are in pain,” said Newark Councilman Luis Quintana.
The roundtable participants see Promesa as a promise unfulfilled.
“It really doesn’t guarantee that the island of Puerto Rico’s going to have any representation on this oversight board,” said Newark Councilman Anibal Ramos.
“It creates the possibility of eliminating minimum wage and overtime protections for Puerto Ricans, and lastly it has no provisions to try to create growth,” said Sen. Bob Menenedez.
Menendez sponsored a different bill to help Puerto Rico pay back its debt and he’ll try to amend the House bill as it heads for a vote in the Senate.
“We want to create access to the bankruptcy code, to reorganize, which means that they’ll take their creditors, and they’ll sit down and say, ‘Look, you’re going to have to extend the time period in which we pay you, you may not get 100 percent on the dollar, you may get 80 percent on the dollar.’ But this happens all of the time, in other institutions,” Menendez said.
But six New Jersey representatives voted for the Promesa Bill — including Tom MacArthur.
“Well, look, no bill is perfect and every bill is the result of compromise,” MacArthur said. “We are trying to thread a needle here of giving Puerto Rico the relief it needs and holding the politicians feet to the fire that got them into this place in the first place.”
Puerto Rico’s already missed several debt payments but it’s facing its biggest bill — $1 billion — due July 1. That’s why lawmakers are scrambling for a fix before the island defaults.