Senators Introduce Bill to Cancel Puerto Rico's Debt

On the day set aside to celebrate Puerto Rico’s constitution, a group of U.S. senators introduced a bill to forgive Puerto Rico’s debt.

Puerto Rico owes more than $70 billion to creditors. Then Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla declared the debt “unpayable” in 2015. The PROMESA fiscal oversight board was put in place to help, among other things, restructure Puerto Rico’s debt.

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced the U.S. Territorial Relief Act of 2018, along with cosponsors Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Kamala Harris (D-CA). The bill offers debt cancellation for territories meeting two of the following criteria:

* The population has decreased by more than 5% over ten years.
* The territory has received disaster relief within 5 years.
* The debt is over $15,000 per capita.

Pointing out that U.S. territories are inhabited by millions of U.S. citizens (this point being primarily related to Puerto Rico) and that “the Federal government owes a special duty of care and stewardship to the citizens of territories of the United States” because of a history of discrimination, the bill allows the territorial governments to vote to erase unsecured debt.

Read more: https://www.puertoricoreport.com/senators-introduce-bill-to-cancel-puerto-ricos-debt/#.W2ZT99VKjRY