Because of its surfing and the once-pleasant charm of Old San Juan, I've enjoyed visits to the commonwealth over the last almost twenty years. I have watched it slowly degrade ever since the closing of the U.S. Navy base, demanded by some verbose mainland politicians and professional screamers, removed 300 million bucks from Puerto Rico's GNP. Cruise ships and casinos could not off-set that loss. Then there are these
antics:
That’s ironic because it was President Bill Clinton who signed the repeal of Section 936, the 1976 tax provision that exempted corporations operating in U.S. territories like Puerto Rico from federal taxes and caused a surge in economic activity on the island. That loophole caused numerous U.S. companies to set up shop in Puerto Rico, extending an industrialization program initiated in the 1950s called Operation Bootstrap. Over the period 1950 to 1980 per capita GNP rose ten-fold while disposable income soared 1,600 per cent. In the twenty years following the repeal of the tax advantage, manufacturing jobs were cut in half. Ten years after Clinton signed the phase-out into law, employment peaked in Puerto Rico, and the government started borrowing to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, also campaigning for Puerto Rican votes, was one of the few that voted last year against the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, called Promesa, describing it as a return to “the worst form of colonialism.” The Promesa established a board, similar to those enacted to oversee the rescue of New York in the 1970s and Detroit in 2014, to resolve the island’s financial situation and to rebuild its economy. Bernie was bound to hate the measure, especially since one of its key missions was to reduce the island’s minimum wage. Given that cheap labor abounds in neighboring islands, and the Commonwealth’s persistently high unemployment, the federal minimum of $7.25 is injurious. Soon after losing the Puerto Rico primary, Sanders dropped the issue.
To be fair, Clinton and Sanders are not alone in having ignored Puerto Rico’s problems. Legislators on both sides of the aisle have stood idly by, hoping the territory’s unpayable debts would miraculously disappear. Now that the island’s dysfunction has morphed from dangerous to fatal, and Puerto Rico is blaming Hurricane Maria and Donald Trump for its misfortunes, Americans are taking a hard look at just how badly the Commonwealth has been mismanaged. They’re discovering that the damage wrought by recent storms, and the inadequate emergency response, was inevitable.