Puerto Rico’s legislature got back to work last week. One might expect the first order of business to be helping families and businesses struggling on the island, given the economic turmoil that has wreaked havoc in Puerto Rico since Governor Alejandro García Padilla took office. Instead, the legislature decided to continue the failed policies of Governor García Padilla and his administration by imposing a highly regressive gas tax on the people and businesses of the Commonwealth that is sure to make matters worse.
Governor García Padilla’s time would be best spent implementing real solutions to Puerto Rico’s problems instead of denying what everyone knows: that the island is on the brink of complete economic collapse.
- Mario H. Lopez
Unfortunately, the decision to stick to economically damaging policy schemes does not come as a huge surprise. Let’s look at the García Padilla record to date.
Between July 2013 and July 2014, Puerto Rico lost 32,000 jobs, including 1,300 manufacturing positions, while the labor participation rate for those on the island fell below 40 percent.
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The unemployment rate – a staggering 14 percent – is nearly double that of the District of Columbia, which itself outpaces the rest of the mainland United States.
In the last two years alone, Puerto Rican families are bearing the brunt of more than 80 new taxes that García Padilla has signed into law. To make matters worse, Puerto Rico now has a staggering public debt of at least $73 billion.
New taxes and burdensome public debt, of course, constitute a dangerous attack on the very businesses and the people that the Commonwealth needs to begin to remedy its financial calamity. Such unapologetic anti-growth measures have real consequences to businesses and the livelihoods of hard working Puerto Rican families. No wonder nearly 100,000 Puerto Ricans have left the island since Governor García Padilla took office in 2013.
Rather than pursuing wholesale economic and fiscal reforms, the Governor and his economic team, led by Melba Acosta, are pursuing a strategy that relies on unsustainable, high-interest rate loans from Wall Street, as well as a shirking of its debts by way of legal loopholes and manipulation of the Law. Acosta is spearheading the Governor’s reckless political maneuvers in her role as head of the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank, the largest unregulated bank in the U.S.
In a flagrant disregard for the rule of law, for example, the Government is involved in a $230 million tax-refund dispute with a local bank, Doral. The Government is refusing to pay this legal obligation despite the fact that Doral won a lawsuit against his administration in the Puerto Rican courts.
Instead of paying, the García Padilla administration, already known for bullying critics and dissenters, has placed the judicial branch in its crosshairs, complaining that the judicial system is not fair and that it is siding with a private business over the interests of the Puerto Rican people, a statement that he knows to be untrue.
This total disregard for the law – and the politically motivated assault on the judicial system – reached new heights when the García Padilla administration signed what many experts describe and believe to be an unconstitutional law that allows the Commonwealth to get out from under billions of dollars in loans and investments provided by unsuspecting investors, including many Puerto Ricans.
To help defend these reckless, “scorched earth” policies, Governor García Padilla and his team turned to a longtime ally, Representative Luis Gutiérrez from Illinois – a politician who was schooled in bare-fisted politics of Chicago and who was just last year under investigation by the House Ethics Committee. Rep. Gutiérrez recently used his platform as a member of Congress to attack private individuals for daring to question his pal the governor.
Time may be running out for the governor and his allies, however. Investors are waking up to the reality that Governor García Padilla and his administration have made the island a risky place to invest. Wall Street analyst Alexandra Lebenthal recently told viewers of CNBC to “run fast, away from Puerto Rico.” And Joseph Rosenblum of AllianceBernstein recently warned that “the restructuring of virtually all of Puerto Rico's debt is inevitable.”
In a clear attempt to reassure investors, Governor García Padilla took the unusual step of saying that Puerto Rico is good for the money loaned under his watch. He even went as far as declaring that he “will fight” to pay Puerto Rico’s bond debt, calling it his “duty.”
The fact that the governor has to take time out of his schedule to declare that his administration is not deadbeat is as sure a sign as any that Puerto Rico is in a dire situation and in need for different leadership. Governor García Padilla’s time would be best spent implementing real solutions to Puerto Rico’s problems instead of denying what everyone knows: that the island is on the brink of complete economic collapse.
Enough is enough.
Mario H. Lopez is president of the Hispanic Leadership Fund. He also spearheads the Alliance for Innovation, which focuses on sustainable, long-term development across the world.