Sanders Blasts 'Colonial' Puerto Rico Bill and Wall Street Vulture Funds in Powerful Senate Speech

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WATCH: Sanders Blasts 'Colonial' Puerto Rico Bill and Wall Street Vulture Funds in Powerful Senate Speech
Ben Norton
Salon (via Alternet)

The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, or PROMESA, was largely supported by both the Republican and Democratic parties, and will allow the U.S. federal government to appoint an unelected seven-member board that controls the finances of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory.

Sen. Bob Menéndez led the opposition to the bill, slamming it as a form of “blatant colonialism.” He held a four-hour filibuster on Tuesday, June 28, stressing that a vote for PROMESA “is a vote to disenfranchise 3.5 million Americans.”

The vast majority of Puerto Ricans opposed the legislation, but it passed both the U.S. House and Senate by substantial margins.

He called it a “disaster for the people of Puerto Rico,” adding, “This legislation takes away their democratic rights and self-governance and will impose harsh austerity measures, which will make the poorest people in Puerto Rico even poorer.”

PROMESA makes the U.S. a “colonial master,” Sanders continued, and “strips away the most important powers of the democratically elected officials of Puerto Rico.”

The self-declared democratic socialist stressed that Wall Street vulture funds are profiting off of odious debt that is “unsustainable and unpayable,” exploiting Puerto Rico’s “human suffering and economic turmoil.”

[fasttense]

1. The rich must be paid back with austerity for the poor.

I heard the first thing the board was going to do was lower the minumum wage.