By NAN Contributor
News Americas, SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Fri. Mar. 11, 2016: Puerto Ricans may be unable to vote in US general elections but the territory’s debt crisis is definitely getting attention in the campaign.
During Wednesday night’s Univision and Washington Post Democratic Presidential debate, both contenders Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were asked if they would help Puerto Rico restructure its $72 billion debt and economic crises.
Here’s what they said they would do:
Clinton: She has pledged to help the commonwealth within her first 100 days in the White House, if elected insisting she wants Congress to give Puerto Rico the tools to restructure its debts.
“[It’s] a grave injustice for the Congress, led by the Republicans to be refusing to enact that opportunity within the bankruptcy law,” said Clinton.”
We’re not talking about a bailout, we’re talking about a fair shot at success,” she has said in the past while urging Puerto Ricans to move to Florida.
Sanders: He acknowledged that the Puerto Rican government has been paying interest rates as high as 11 percent and many of its bonds were purchased by vulture capitalists for 30 cents on the dollar.
“We’ve got to bring people together, and it’s not the people of Puerto Rico, or the children or the schools, but maybe some of these vulture capitalists who are going to have to lose a little bit of money in this process,” Sanders said.
In the past, he has agreed with Clinton and the island’s governor, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, that Puerto Rico should be afforded the same bankruptcy protections that exist for municipalities across the United States.
But so far the House under Speaker Paul Ryan has been unmoved.
