“The people of Puerto Rico are experiencing enormous economic pain as a result of a depression that has now lasted more than a decade”, the Democratic presidential candidate said. “I was gone from Puerto Rico for 17 years and when I came back everything was the same or worse”. The island already has defaulted on hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of bond payments, and officials warn the government is running out of money.
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Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla also has rejected creation of such a board.
Congress is now working on a reworked bill to help the ailing island out but there are a number of issues still on the table that need to be hashed out.
Sanders said it’s “morally unacceptable” that “billionaire hedge fund managers have been calling for more austerity in Puerto Rico”.
“We’ve raised these issues over and over again”, Grijalva told Fox News on Capitol Hill.
During his town hall on Monday, Sanders said he would alleviate Puerto Rico’s economic woes in part by rebuilding local infrastructure to create jobs and establish a clean economy by harnessing the island’s solar and wind resources. “All citizens should have a right to vote for all those who make their laws”, Clinton said in a statement, adding that she also supports an island referendum to decide Puerto Rico’s political relationship with the mainland United States.
Sanders said he would give the island three options – becoming the 51st state, having more rights as a U.S. territory or becoming an independent country, the media outlet reported.
Sanders’ visit comes a day before former U.S. President Bill Clinton arrives to campaign for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Puerto Rico has a rich and proud history, and as US citizens, have the right for their voices to be heard in all issues that affect them. “The people of Puerto Rico should not be forced to suffer even more”.
Puerto Ricans are USA citizens, but they don’t get to vote in the main presidential election in November if they live on the island because it’s not a state.
Blasting “the vulture capitalists on Wall Street are trying to get a hundred percent back on their bonds at a time when so numerous children and the people of this island are suffering”, Sanders delivered a blistering speech in which he demanded a humanitarian response to Puerto Rico’s economic woes.
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House Speaker Paul Ryan has rejected any bailout of creditors and instead has been mulling the creation of an oversight board that would reschedule the USA territory’s debt payments.
