[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11003-11004]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         PUERTO RICO'S POLITICAL STATUS AND ITS ECONOMIC CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Puerto Rico (Mr. Pierluisi) for 5 minutes.

[[Page 11004]]


  Mr. PIERLUISI. Mr. Speaker, the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, home 
to 3.5 million American citizens, stands at a crossroads. The Governor 
recently announced that Puerto Rico cannot pay all of its debts. The 
Governor's comments were not constructive because they lacked 
precision.
  Puerto Rico's total debt is about $72 billion, and the structure of 
this debt is complex. About 17 entities in Puerto Rico have bonds 
outstanding, from the central government to public corporations. The 
terms, source of repayment, and the level of legal protection for each 
bond varies.
  For instance, bonds issued by the central government received 
priority payment under the Puerto Rico Constitution, which was 
authorized and approved by Congress. Accordingly, when the Governor 
asserted that Puerto Rico cannot pay its debts, the sweeping nature of 
his comments raised many practical and legal questions and generated 
considerable anxiety.
  Mr. Speaker, the crisis in Puerto Rico is real, and it must be 
confronted with composure, competence, and candor. To this end, I want 
to articulate a simple truth, but one that is often overlooked: namely, 
the challenges we face are structural in nature and, therefore, require 
structural solutions, at both the Puerto Rico and the Federal level.
  Within Puerto Rico, more discipline by the territory government is 
imperative. We must learn to live within our means. Puerto Rico's 
political leaders have shown the capacity to develop sound strategies, 
but have not always demonstrated the same ability to effectively 
execute those strategies. Performance, not planning, is the problem. We 
can do better, and for the sake of our constituents, we must do better.
  Mr. Speaker, honest self-appraisal and self-criticism are essential, 
but cannot be limited to Puerto Rico. If the American public is under 
the impression that Puerto Rico is solely to blame for this crisis, it 
is profoundly mistaken.
  The source of the problem in Puerto Rico is not its people, who are 
talented and hard-working, nor is it our political leaders, who are no 
better or worse than their counterparts in other U.S. jurisdictions who 
at times also overpromise and underdeliver; instead, the root cause of 
the problem is our political status, which has given rise to a system 
of severe and entrenched inequality that makes it exceptionally 
difficult to succeed and exceptionally easy to fail.
  The direct link between Puerto Rico's political status and its 
economic problems was explored at a recent congressional hearing. The 
hearing served to underscore that there are more American citizens in 
Puerto Rico than in 21 States, that they serve in the U.S. military in 
large numbers, but that they cannot vote for President or Senators and 
have only one nonvoting Delegate in this House.
  The hearing highlighted that, as a territory, Puerto Rico can be and 
often is treated worse than the States under Federal laws, from 
Medicaid to the earned income tax credit to chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy 
Code. To compensate for the deficiency in Federal economic support, the 
Puerto Rico Government has borrowed heavily, which explains the 
excessive debt.
  In recent years, 250,000 island residents have moved to the States, 
and these numbers are only growing. Once in the States, they are 
entitled to full voting rights and equal treatment under the law, 
rights they were denied in Puerto Rico.
  Mr. Speaker, this is an intolerable situation. My constituents have 
tolerated it for too long, and they will tolerate it no longer. They 
voted for statehood in a local referendum in 2012, and they will vote 
for statehood again in even greater numbers in a Federal referendum in 
2017.
  My message to my colleagues is simple. If you give us the same rights 
and responsibilities as our fellow American citizens and let us rise or 
fall on our merits, we will rise; but, if you continue to treat us like 
second-class citizens, don't profess to be surprised when we fall.

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