House approves Puerto Rico rescue

[cal04]

Source: The Hill

The House on Thursday passed legislation to tackle Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, as Congress took a large step towards addressing the economic and humanitarian crisis enveloping the island.

While the vote is still taking place, the measure is already well above a majority and is expected to pass by a comfortable margin.

The passage of the carefully crafted compromise is a significant win for Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who was an early and active supporter of the legislation, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the White House, which also pushed the package.

In a rare move, both Ryan and Pelosi took to the House floor to urge support for the legislation, shooting for broad bipartisan support to encourage speedy action through the Senate.

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/282895-house-votes-to-rescue-puerto-rico

[KamaAina]

1. One can only imagine what kind of poison pills the repuke House loaded it up with

[mckara]

2. +1

[hughee99]

3. I wouldn't be shocked to learn that the investors that own Puerto Rico's debt are now going to get

a lot more of their money back, and some of those same people were pushing both parties for the bailout.

[Delver Rootnose]

5. I have to wonder who....

...is really being bailed out. Bankers again? I don't know much on this issue but I have to wonder what the people of Puerto Rico's get out of this and does it change things for the better long term. Are austerity measures now going to be implemented?

[forest444]

6. Probably Paul Singer.

He just pulled a similar, $3 billion heist in Argentina by buying $48 million in old defaulted bonds back in 2008 (plus another $120 million or so last year through fronts), and then per$uaded a senile Wall Street judge to block everyone else's payments until he got his ransom.

The gambit wasn't paying off until, last November, Argentina narrowly elected a GOP clone (Macri, who even named his party after the GOP). After a little bit of prerequisite theater, Macri caved - in exchange for a nice commission, if his prominence in the Panama Papers scandal is any indication.

Anyway, now that Singer has all the judicial precedent he needs, nothing would stop him or any other vulture fund from pulling the same thing on Puerto Rico - and ultimately even the U.S. government if some future GOP speaker manufactures a default like they almost did in 2011.

[Hortensis]

12. The glass-always-empty crowd weighs in?

How about a little balance?

Ryan made a moral case for the bill, arguing that the island's 3.5 million residents — who are American citizens — need Congress's support. "The Puerto Rican people are our fellow Americans. They pay our taxes. They fight in our wars," he said. "We cannot allow this to happen."

The island faces a default on $2 billion of debt payments on July 1. The crisis has been created by years of economic decline and an exodus of Puerto Ricans to the U.S. mainland, leaving the island with a shrinking pile of revenues. The House bill is something rarely seen in Washington of late: a genuine compromise.

Passage of the bill comes after months of tense, private negotiations between both parties and the White House. Democrats pushed hard to ensure the island could restructure its $70 billion in debt ... Further complicating the talks, lawmakers were under pressure from investors in Puerto Rican debt who were jockeying to ensure the largest possible payout from the island. One outside group ... ran ads in the districts of key lawmakers blasting the bill as a “bailout.” Speaker Paul Ryan mounted a public campaign to dispel the “bailout” narrative, emphasizing repeatedly that no extra federal dollars would go to Puerto Rico.

Some on the right wanted to see the bill focus primarily on slashing regulations and taxes on the island, arguing that was the path towards salvaging its economy.

Uhuh to that last: They lost. Whatever we might not like in the details, in spite of all the right-wing efforts to impede, corrupt, and eventually destroy it, in this case the system has broken out of deadlock to work in the incremental, negotiation by negotiation way a republic that holds elections every 2 years is meant to.

[hughee99]

13. Please read the first sentence in your excerpt.

Do you believe that Ryan made this decision because of some moral obligation or out of compassion? That wouldn't seem in keeping with what he's done in the past. I don't have an issue with the legislation, but please, let's not pretend that they were actually able to get enough republicans and Dems on board because it was the right thing to do. It seems like whenever there's a bipartisan effort to "do what's right" there's also group of well connected people who will profit greatly from it and have also quietly pushed for it.

[Hortensis]

15. Oh, offering people a high-road gloss always helps.

I'm just pointing out that other things than just corruption are happening.

You know, there is an extremely strong correlation between chronic political complaining and chronic political negligence and ignorance.

The unhappy ones' anxiety and discontent could be cut in half by one good American politics course. Our systems are in worse shape than usual now and we are in danger, but it's never all bad. We have a fine, strong structure that was designed to empower and serve the common man -- if we don't neglect it into the ground. And it actually takes a whole lot of negligence for a very long time to get to the point we're at.

Barney Frank on this subject. He is not just talking about some discontented Bernie voters but about all the unhappy complainers who didn't do their job as citizens.

"I am disappointed by the voters who say, “OK I’m just going to show you how angry I am!” And I’m particularly unimpressed with people who sat out the Congressional elections of 2010 and 2014 and then are angry at Democrats because we haven’t been able to produce public policies they like. They contributed to the public policy problems and now they are blaming other people for their own failure to vote, and then it’s like, “Oh look at this terrible system,” but it was their voting behavior that brought it about."

"So it seems like you’re saying Bernie’s voters have a slightly unrealistic sense about the political process. And that this is driven—"

"I didn’t say slightly."

[valerief]

7. Exactly! They don't give without taking 20 times as much. nt

[metalbot]

14. Why speculate?

Just read the bill...

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/4900/text

[GOLGO 13]

4. Hah! They're getting real worried about all those PR going to Florida

& flipping Fl. into Blue forever. We'll see if the migration to the mainland will stop.

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

9. Now watch Trump rip them for "increasing foreign aid". (n/t)

[NobodyHere]

10. Puerto Rico is an example of why we should fix our deficit.

[IronLionZion]

11. Sounds like a very conservative "rescue"

Conservatives have long been skeptical of allowing the island to rework its debt obligations, fearing it could encourage other debt-strapped parts of the country to follow suit.

Some on the right wanted to see the bill focus primarily on slashing regulations and taxes on the island, arguing that was the path towards salvaging its economy.

The bill does include some of those provisions to the chagrin of Democrats, including one that allows the island to avoid paying the federal minimum wage to some workers. Democrats tried to pass an amendment on the floor stripping that provision, but failed.

Democrats also said they were disappointed the bill did not expand Medicaid benefits and the Earned Income Tax Credit to the island.